


just be still with me

by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson)



Series: i can stare for a thousand years (you wouldn't believe what i've been through) [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, but that doesn't come in until the second part of the series, however you feel, just think some of us need this after chapter 2, or read it because you want context for the later fix it, so please feel free to read this as a feel good rom com, this is not a no pennywise au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-11 07:17:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxwatson/pseuds/eddiespaghetti
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is 38, working as a driver in New York. Richie Tozier is a stand up comic who comes to New York on a one way ticket to audition for SNL, and his agent has hired Eddie as his driver. There's something familiar about Richie, though Eddie knows they've never met. While Richie insists on sitting in the front seat and making something more than small talk, Eddie struggles to maintain professional distance.Basically - what if Eddie and Richie did forget, and didn't see each other for 25 years, but they fell in love anyways.





	1. don't you know my name?

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic for over two years. title from david bowie's cat people (putting out fire). this will be part of a two part series, in which part 2 will (very roughly) follow the events of the adult parts of the novel and miniseries, but adapted in my own way for this Eddie and Richie, who are based on the 2017 film. as such, this is not a no-pennywise au, but this first part won't really address it, so feel free to read this as if there's some other reason richie seems familiar.
> 
> none of this will be in any way it chapter 2 compliant, because i started writing this before it ever came out! so like. this is very much an au based primarily on chapter 1, the book, and the minseries, and my own kind of interpretation of all of that.

At 38, Eddie Kaspbrak felt like he had a pretty nice life. He had a nice place in New York, just outside of the city, because living in the city would have stressed him out too much - taking the Subway was like something out of a fucking nightmare. He had his own business - a driving business he’d started himself and built from the ground up. He did well for himself, had the money to travel from time to time if he liked.

The only problem, really, was that he lived alone. 38 years old and completely, slightly miserably, single. 

For a long time, Eddie hadn’t had the heart to force his mother to move out of the house she had long ago insisted they share when he finished college. That meant no serious dating, no bringing anyone home. It meant that even though his mother had died a few years back, Eddie had still never had a serious relationship. He wasn’t a complete loss - he’d gone out to bars, he had fooled around a little in college, but that only meant so much.

Now that his mother  _ had _ passed away, Eddie was just. Well. Nervous. Dating still didn’t make much sense to him, and it definitely didn’t seem like he’d be any good at it. Once he had downloaded Grindr because he’d overheard one of his other drivers talking about it, but he’d gotten one message, had a panic attack, taken his anti-anxiety medication, and deleted the app again.

Probably no thanks to his overbearing mother, Eddie didn’t actually have any real kind of physical disease. He didn’t have asthma, or AIDS, or anything else his mother had fear-mongered him about for years and years. He just had what his therapist called  _ one of the most severe cases of anxiety I’ve ever seen _ .

Life with his mother had nearly smothered Eddie, but at some point he hardly remembered now, some part of him had managed to break free. He’d known he was gay for longer than he could remember, in spite of his mother’s awful warnings about what could happen to him - which had probably come out of the fact that she’d known, somewhere deep down. He remembered, vaguely, that when he was young and growing up, she’d forced him to take medication for some unknown illness, some vague inclination that he was sick. Now the only prescription he took was one he’d chosen and had only ever gotten filled on his own. Sometimes, when he woke up from vague and misty nightmares, he got the phantom sensation of holding an inhaler, of the need to take a deep inhale of something that tasted a little like battery acid - but of course that was silly. He’d never had asthma. Only panic attacks. And he couldn’t remember ever using an inhaler - but as he’d established with his therapist, he’d forgotten an unusually large portion of his childhood.

Eddie knew he’d grown up in Maine, because his mother had told him so. There were some pictures of him, presumably taken there, but only pictures of him, alone, dressed up for Halloween or learning to ride a bike. That made sense to him, really, that his mom had kept him away from other kids - that he’d been alone a lot. Frankly, he was surprised sometimes that he hadn’t been homeschooled, but he could remember the last few years of high school, after he and his mother had moved to upstate New York. He’d struggled to make friends there, too.

These were the things he thought about sometimes, getting stuck in traffic on the way to JFK. He always listened to music to fill the silence, but it didn’t always manage to distract him from his thoughts. For better or worse, the long and slow commute to the airport was unavoidable. Step one of getting a particular job was nearly always picking up whoever could afford one of his cars at the airport, fancy name sign in hand and all.

He’d driven real celebrities before, some more exciting than others, but the guy coming in today was someone Eddie had never heard of. A quick google search had established that the guy was a comedian, and his pictures gave Eddie an idea of who to look for, but nothing about him really rang any bells.

Of course, that was what he’d thought looking at his tiny phone screen.

When the guy comes down the escalator, and Eddie’s standing there in a suit, sign in hand, the first bizarre thought that he has is that he feels like the guy should be wearing glasses - but that doesn’t make any sense at all. There hadn’t been any pictures of him with glasses. And there’s nothing wrong with his face - thin nose, big dark eyes, curly hair. Actually, Eddie has to admit he finds him pretty handsome or. Well. Striking. Attractive. But he still feels for some reason like the guy should be wearing glasses. Eddie nudges his own up at the thought. The only thing his mother had ever been right about - constantly taking him to the eye doctor. Her bad vision had been hereditary after all.

The guy finally seems to catch sight of the sign, and he makes eye contact with Eddie and smiles as he walks over. “Guess you’re the lucky driver who’s stuck with me, huh?”

Eddie looks at the sign and then back up at him. “You’re Richie Tozier?”

“That’d be me. And you are?”

His customers don’t usually ask his name. It’s sort of nice. Eddie smiles back and offers his hand. “Eddie Kaspbrak. Nice to meet you.”

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie says, and Eddie finds that his name sounds strange coming out of the other man’s mouth, for no apparent reason. He shakes the thought from his mind, and hopes his weird obsession with this stranger’s lack of glasses goes with it.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

The guy gets weird, of course, as soon as they get to the car. Every celebrity has their quirks, and for whatever reason, Richie Tozier refuses to sit in the back seat.

“I mean it’s gotta be fucking weird, right? I’m just like, a guy, I don’t need to sit in the back like I’m better than you, we can both just sit up front.”

“People really do tend to sit in the back, it’s sort of the point of hiring a car. People sit back there, sometimes we make polite conversation. It’s not that weird, it’s really just... My job.”

“Oh come on. You can’t tell me that it’s not at least a little weird like never making eye contact with whoever you’re talking to except through a mirror. This isn’t  _ Driving Miss Daisy _ , I’m not an eccentric old rich lady and you’re clearly not Morgan Freeman, my agent set all this up. Just let me sit up front.”

The reference isn’t even that funny, but for some reason Eddie finds himself smiling. He also still has the passing thought that sometimes not having to make eye contact is easier, but it passes quickly with Richie looking back at him. “Wow, timely reference there. Comedian of the year award goes to Richie Tozier.” Eddie then, immediately, realizes he’s been far too snarky to be talking to a client, and he’s about to apologize profusely when Richie bursts out laughing.

“Eddie Spaghetti gets off a good one!”

Eddie makes a face and shakes his head. “What the hell did you just call me? Was that - are you five?”

“Not working for you? We’ll find one.”

“Are you - are you seriously insisting you’re going to give me a nickname? I’m your driver, I’m not - what?”

“Eds, look, I’m gonna be in New York for a while! Got a lot of shows to do, a lot of guest spots to record, an audition for SNL that my agent is insisting I go to - we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Not that one either.”

Richie grins at him, and for some reason, gently pats him on the cheek. “We’ll get there.”

Eddie sighs and finally reaches to open the front door for Richie, but Richie beats him to it with his ridiculously long arm and Eddie just shakes his head and goes around to the driver’s side. It’s odd having someone up front with him, but not as odd as it could be. There’s something comfortable about Richie - maybe it’s the aura he puts off. It’s not effortless, he’s not cool enough for that - but it’s obvious that part of what makes him funny is that he doesn’t care if he looks weird or like an idiot, or if his references are timely. It’s some kind of confidence that’s miles away from cocky. It makes Eddie feel less like he’s going to make an idiot out of himself - Richie kind of already has made an idiot out of himself, after all, and it’s only made Eddie strangely fond of him.

Eddie gets the car started and puts the address of Richie’s hotel into his GPS, and then they start the hours long commute back into the city. Richie’s all folded up in some way that Eddie can’t fully comprehend without staring, his legs looking too long for the seat, somehow. Eddie’s not a short guy, he had his growth spurt in high school just like most people, but Richie just seems like he’s all limbs.

“How long have we got, then?”

Eddie doesn’t need to check the GPS to know - he’s done this drive enough to estimate based on time of day and traffic. “At least an hour, probably more. Sorry. There’s music if you want it, or you’ve always got the option of sitting on your phone and ignoring me - but I’m guessing you sitting up here means you’re not going to take that option.”

In some bizarre sports announcer voice, Richie says “Score one for Team Kaspbrak! Just look at the kid go!”

“How are you a comedian?” Eddie asks, which then makes him wonder if he lost his brain to mouth filter somewhere on the way to the airport.

Eddie can see Richie’s smile out of the corner of his eye, but it’s a strange sort of half-smile. “You want the interview answer or the real answer?”

“Well we’ve got an hour, and you decided to sit up here, Mr. Tozier. It’s not like we’ve got anything better going on.”

Richie makes a face. “Jesus fuck, nobody even called my dad Mr. Tozier, call me Richie before I have to tell my agent to hire a new driver.”

Richie’s obviously joking, and that makes the moment even better. Some part of Eddie wants to keep calling Richie  _ Mr. Tozier _ just to see him get annoyed, but with a small smile, and a mental note made for later, Eddie just nods.

“Right. Well. Serious answer, then. Ah... Kind of had a fucked up childhood, don’t remember most of it. I assume at some point in there I picked up the whole. Doing voices thing. Probably a desperate cry for attention, you know how it is. In high school I started doing theater and shit, and I got better at it. I ran off to California first chance I got, lived in a shitty apartment, took some improv classes, and eventually I got fucking lucky.”

“Guessing the interview answer doesn’t have that many curse words, then.”

Richie snorts. “I get my fair share of bleeps. I fuck up a lot.”

Eddie glances over, and feels like he should offer up something about himself in exchange. He doesn’t know why he’s having a real conversation like this with a client who’ll leave again soon enough - but Richie did say he’s staying for a bit. “I guess we can just call this car the fucked up childhood club. Two certified members in one place.”

“You too, huh?”

Eddie shrugs. “My mother was a nightmare.”

“Your dad?”

“Died when I was a kid. I don’t remember him. Or much of anything. You said you don’t either?”

Richie shakes his head. “Must be something in the water.”

There’s something about that sentence that makes Eddie wince, but he can’t place what it is, so he tries to shrug it off. “Mm. I don’t know, my therapist seems to imply that it isn’t exactly normal.”

“Eh, what’s a therapist know? Emotional maturity is vastly overrated.”

“Yeah, great, thanks. I’ll start taking my mental health advice from a TV comedian, that seems like a brilliant idea.”

Richie laughs, and Eddie smiles.

“I do have to say, I’m starting to wonder if you’re funnier than I am, Eds.”

“You’ve gotta stop calling me that.”

“Shh, just let it grow on you.”

Eddie makes a disgusted noise, but is still privately a little pleased by both Richie’s compliment and the fact that he’s determined to come up with some kind of special nickname for Eddie. A small part of him wonders if Richie is flirting, but down that path lies both panic and disappointment, so Eddie firmly shuts himself down. The guy is almost certainly straight, and even if he wasn’t, there’s no reason he should be flirting with Eddie.

“What do you do other than drive, Eds?”

Eddie gets so distracted by his own sudden embarrassment that he forgets to tell Richie off for the nickname, because... Well. He doesn’t do much of anything. Sits around his house listening to records, which is apparently becoming cool again. Travels, in theory, but he hasn’t done much of it. He tells himself it’s because he’s afraid to leave the business unattended, but he knows that really he’s just afraid of leaving, the way his mother always wanted him to be; afraid of going somewhere too far away on his own.

“Well. I, uh. Travel. Listen to music.”

“Travel? Ever been out to the west coast?”

“No. You live in LA, right?” It’s a cowardly subject change, but Eddie’s never claimed to be brave.

“I did, yeah, up until now. This was a one way ticket, though - LAX to JFK, no flight back in sight.”

Now that’s a surprise. “One way?”

“My agent really wants me to get that part on SNL.”

Richie could be moving to New York. Eddie’s met someone he’s moderately fond of, and that someone might be staying in New York.

“Wow. Well. That certainly is confident.” Eddie pauses, and looks over. For once, it seems like there’s actually some level of anxiety lingering beneath Richie’s expression. “Do you want the part?”

Richie seems to crack a little, and he laughs, but somehow Eddie knows there’s something off about it. “You wanna know the truth, Eds? It’s pretty much the one part I’ve always wanted. It’s the one thing I do remember from growing up - my parents never cared enough to tell me to fuck off and go to bed, so I’d stay up every Saturday night and watch the show. I still remember seeing the first Wayne’s World sketch. I used to idolize Dana Carvey. I’m pretty sure that all had something to do with me getting into all this shit - that’s the interview answer, actually, more or less. So yeah. Yes. I want the part. And I’m scared shitless that I’m not going to get it.”

“You’ll get it,” Eddie says without thinking. Somehow, some part of him knows that it’s the truth. Richie can get the part. He’ll get it. Eddie hasn’t even really heard him be funny yet, but there’s something about him that inspires absolute confidence.

“That’s sweet.”

Eddie looks over and sees Richie smiling at him, and he has to look back at the road before he does something stupid. “I’m not just saying it because you’re paying me, I mean it. Just.”  _ I’ve just got a feeling _ . “There has to be a reason your agent’s so confident, right? Otherwise it’d be dumb to pull a stunt like that. You’ll get it.”

“Are you a fan?”

His brow furrowing, Eddie looks over. “Is there a right answer to that?”

“I mean, at this point it might be a little bit creepy if you were and hadn’t said anything yet.”

“I’d never heard of you in my life, before today. I had to google you. That what you wanted to hear?”

“Wow. Never even heard of me?”

Eddie shakes his head, and Richie pouts at him. “That’s ridiculous, what are you even doing with your face? Look, I think you’re funny now. I just told you I think you can get a part on SNL, what else do you want?”

“You actually believe in me more now that you met me? That’s unprecedented.”

Richie’s self-deprecating joke makes Eddie snort out a laugh, and then Richie laughs, too - at him, a little, but also with him. Eddie doesn’t mind.

“What about you, Eds? What’d you wanna be when you grew up? You always plan on becoming a driver?”

The question is a surprise - Eddie hasn’t really had anyone ask him anything like that, mostly because he hasn’t gotten to know anyone in a while. “Well, I’m not just a driver. I started the company. Kaspbrak isn’t in the name obviously because it’s a little weird and also sort of a mouthful, but I do well enough running things. I like to drive, so I still take jobs, but mostly I organize who gets what clients, that sort of stuff. Make sure special requests get taken care of.”

“Special requests?”

Eddie smiles. He has a feeling Richie’s going to like this part. “We get a lot of wealthy clients, celebrities, people who don’t want to just take a taxi and risk the driver’s recognition. We get a lot of people a lot more famous than you, no offense. And sometimes they have special requests, and part of our business model and what keeps us so successful is that we grant them, within reason. Requests for certain types of cars or things to have stocked in the back.”

“...Please tell me you’re gonna tell me some of the interesting ones.”

“Well, we’ve gotta have something to fill the time, don’t we? So I can start with a couple of the best ones, but after that I’d suggest you just start naming people and I can answer all your burning questions.”

Eddie starts by covering Mick Jagger’s request for 100 condoms, Jennifer Lopez’s need for a car upholstered in white fabric, and how Katy Perry had insisted that the driver not speak to her at all. Richie asked about Lady Gaga (who had a penchant for gummi worms), Zach Galifinakis (who was mostly just surprisingly rude about everything), and Charlie Day (who didn’t make any special requests, but sang pretty loudly in the backseat).

By then, they’re actually getting close to Richie’s hotel, which is ridiculous, because it doesn’t even feel like it’s been an hour.

Eddie decides to bring up something else he’s curious about. “Why are you staying in a hotel if you’re planning to stay?”

“Still need to find an apartment, or someone to stay with. If I actually get the part, I’ll start figuring all that out. In the meantime, I feel better just treating the stay as temporary. The last thing I need to do is take any of this for granted.”

Eddie immediately wants to offer his house to Richie which is... Absurd at best. At worst, frankly sort of dangerous, because God knows what Richie’s actually like or what he could be into, or whatever else. Eddie doesn’t know him at all. He’s a total stranger. One good conversation doesn’t make an invitation for a strange man to stay in your house - even if your house is empty, the stranger is sort of gorgeous ( _ that’s a dangerous upgrade _ , Eddie acknowledges to himself), and the two of you seem to have some kind of instant chemistry.

“Well. If worst comes to worst I could always let you sleep in the car,” Eddie jokes instead, and it earns him another laugh.

Quietly turning off the GPS, Eddie takes the longest possible route through the city to Richie’s hotel. He only feels a little guilty about it. He’s been paid in advance, so it’s not about that - he just wants to spend a little more time with Richie, which is dangerous, and much worse than just trying to get a little more money.

Eddie pulls up in front of a moderately nice hotel. It’s not really that nice, but if Richie might be staying for a while, that makes enough sense.

“Am I driving you for your whole stay, then?” Eddie asks, and Richie blinks those big eyes at him.

“You have somewhere else to be, Eddie Spaghetti?”

“Jesus, don’t call me that.” Richie grins and Eddie sighs at him. “No. I don’t. We can set a time for pickup every day or on particular days, for now, just. Here, what’s your phone number?”

Richie reels off the numbers, and Eddie quickly shoots him a text.

**Just call me when you need a ride.**

“I’ll keep that in mind, Eds.” There’s an implication in Richie’s voice that Eddie doesn’t know how to deal with, so he swallows down the noise he might have made and then helps Richie with his bags until people come out of the hotel to assist. Eddie nods at Richie, and Richie nods back, and even though it seems inexplicably wrong, Eddie drives away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so basically post chapter 2, as a big fucking eddie kaspbrak stan (we're talking i have an eddie inspired tattoo), i've decided to finally complete this gigantic fic i've been working on for over two years to give him the life i think he deserves. i hope this can be cathartic for anyone else feeling the way i'm feeling.


	2. you've been so long

The next morning, while he’s still having his coffee, Eddie gets a text.

_ hey can you pick me up like five minutes ago i woke up late and i’ve got a taping today for the daily show _

**My car isn’t actually magic but I’ll be there as soon as I can**

_ do you seriously leave auto-capitalization on that’s hilarious _

**It helps when I have clients I’m actually supposed to be professional with instead of ones who text me in lowercase and insist on sitting in the front seat**

_ being professional’s boring. who ever heard of a professional comedian? _

_ wait _

**Well you’re certainly not one are you?**

_ i’m not even laughing at that i left that wide open for you, i’m really the one responsible for that joke _

**Sure you are Mr. Tozier**

_ oh my god just bring the car over i’m still fucking asleep. i’m absolutely getting my agent to hire a new driver _

Eddie grins into his coffee, but he quickly dresses and makes his way into the city. With the routes and the tricks he knows, the trip is fairly short - there are ways to get almost anywhere in a hurry if you need to, as long as it’s not a Friday. He texts Richie to let him know he’s there and he gets one back that says: _ just come up i’m in room 217 _

After making his way to the second floor, Eddie knocks at the door, and - Well.

Richie pulls the door open, and he’s wearing glasses. They’re old - big, thick frames and even thicker lenses, and they make his eyes even bigger. He’s still got bedhead, and he’s even still wearing pajamas, he looks... Well. Eddie just stares at him, because he doesn’t know what else to do, because Richie looks fucking gorgeous, and that’s just terrible for Eddie on multiple fucking levels. 

“So it’s possible that I texted you and then fell back asleep like a fucking asshole so I’m inviting you up so you can like. Physically drag me from the building if necessary. But first I’m gonna make a truly valiant effort at getting dressed, so. Gonna go in the bathroom and do that, you can sit down wherever.”

Eddie does sit down on the edge of the bed, sort of because he doesn’t entirely trust his legs. “You wear glasses,” he says stupidly.

“Oh. Yeah.” Richie winces, and. Is he blushing a little? “I mean not really anymore these frames are probably from fucking like, 1995 or something, but I take my contacts out at night so. Late at night and early in the morning I do.”

It’s beyond weird that Eddie thought that Richie should wear glasses, and he does. But still - maybe they just suit him. And they do, in a way. It’s just that Eddie knows that’s not what he thought or meant, and some part of him somehow knew that Richie wore glasses - but that’s exactly the sort of thing Eddie can be very talented at ignoring. So he does. 

While Richie’s changing, as he’s ducked into the bathroom while Eddie was freaking out, Eddie looks around the room. It’s already somehow cluttered with Richie’s clothing and luggage - and that doesn’t surprise Eddie in the least, based on Richie’s personality. Richie doesn’t make his bed either, so Eddie’s sitting on a rumpled comforter and - well that’s certainly a dangerous train of thought. He’s sitting here now, and Richie slept here last night in his rumpled sleep clothes, probably with those little glasses marks on either side of his nose from wearing his glasses before bed, and he was probably sprawled over the bed, all warm and - Yeah. Bad. Eddie looks for another distraction.

Deciding that looking too closely at Richie’s things is just going to get creepy, Eddie turns his attention to poking at his phone. It’s such a deliberate distraction that he’s incredibly self-aware of it, over-alert for when Richie will come back out of the bathroom and it’ll be time to head out for his taping.

With the business working the way it does, Eddie doesn’t ever really need to take more than one job at once. Really, he could stop driving entirely and let the rest of his drivers take over, but he likes to stay busy. That means, though, that his only client is Richie, and he suddenly wonders what he’s going to do while Richie is in the taping. He has a passing thought that it would be nice to watch Richie, but there’s no reason he should be invited in. He starts searching around on his phone for things to do, instead, so he’ll be able to entertain himself - maybe he can catch a movie or something.

It probably says something, the fact that Eddie can’t stand to be left alone with his thoughts and with nothing to do for very long at all. That’s another thing he chooses to ignore most of the time.

Richie comes walking out of the bathroom, and he’s fully dressed and his glasses are gone - he’s wearing a blazer and a patterned collared shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, all much nicer than his pyjamas. He looks gorgeous, still, but now he’s attractive in a way that doesn’t even seem touchable. Probably for the best.

“Are you ready to go, then?”

“Shoes,” Richie mumbles, and it turns into a yawn. Eddie glances down and sees him wiggling his socked feet against the carpet. Richie sits down on the bed beside him to put on his shoes, and Eddie isn’t sure how long it’s been since he was this close to another person - especially on a bed.

He decides to crack a joke - or at least try. “You know it’s really not that early.”

“It’s three hours earlier for me, first of all. And second of all, I tend to do shows at night in LA, not in the middle of the goddamn day.”

“Pretty grumpy when you don’t get your sleep, huh?”

Richie cracks a smile at that again. “What can I say? Need my beauty sleep, Eddie Spaghetti. Not all of us are as naturally lucky as you.”

Eddie has to fight down a blush at that one - what a hell of a line. He snorts, and looks away. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. Put your shoes on.” Standing up, he looks at his phone one last time before putting it away. “Didn’t you say you were already late?” 

Once he’s done getting his shoes on, Richie stands up, shoves his hands in his pockets, and shrugs. “May as well go all in, right? I mean, at this point.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly how that works, but then again I guess I’m not a publicist or an agent - I’m just your driver.” He goes for the door and pulls it open. “Ready now?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He walks through the door as Eddie holds it open, and Eddie’s a little surprised that Richie didn’t try to beat him to this door like he did the car door.

As soon as they get down the car, Richie practically leaps to open his own door and get into the front seat - Eddie had wondered if it might have been a one off, but apparently not. Apparently he’s going to just keep driving with Richie in his passenger seat. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s glad, but he smiles a little as he gets in on the driver’s side and sets things up to get Richie to his taping as quickly as possible.

Eddie’s seen The Daily Show before, but he doesn’t watch it religiously - he’s not entirely sure either, why Richie’s been asked on, but he assumes they generally have guest comedians or something, and that’s what Richie will be doing. He knows he could ask, but he still can’t stop thinking about Richie in his glasses and pyjamas, so he doesn’t exactly trust himself to open his mouth.

“You’re quiet this morning, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Oh don’t start that again,” Eddie groans, and Richie laughs a little. It’s hard to try and keep a straight face - it’s possible that a hint of a smile sneaks onto the corners of Eddie’s mouth, but he’d never admit it. “Anyways I’m just focusing on driving, we’re in a hurry. You can put the music on if you want, since you’re up here with access. Not sure if it’ll be to your taste, though.”

Richie shrugs, seemingly appeased, and messes around with Eddie’s ipod for a second before he hits play, and the sounds of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” fill the car.

With a grin, Richie turns to look at Eddie. “Breakfast Club, huh?”

Eddie can’t stop himself from smiling back that time, but he sighs and shakes his head. “First of all, it’s a good movie. Second of all, it’s a good song. Do you want to try and argue with that?”

“Me? No, of course not. John Bender was my hero in high school.”

“God, of course he was.” 

“What about you?” Richie presses. “You’re a little like - well. You know, I was gonna say that nerdy kid, but honestly you’re so high-strung sometimes you remind me of Molly Ringwald.”

Eddie frowns and opens his mouth for a moment without even being able to find his words. “Are you - did you really just compare me to Claire Standish? First of all, I am not that high-strung-”

“You flipped shit when I wanted to sit in the front seat and you know it. I can tell, you spend your whole life stressed out.”

“You don’t even know me that well!” The fact is that Richie’s words sting a little because they’re probably true - but also because Richie puts Eddie at ease, and if Richie thinks he’s high-strung now, god knows what he would have thought if he’d ever seen Eddie outside of this week. “Also, you wish you were John Bender, the only thing you have in common is that you both make stupid jokes.”

“Of course, I can only aspire to that level of greatness. I’m clearly never winning you over, Eds.”

And was that - was that an actual reference to him trying to get with Eddie? Well. It was a stupid joke, obviously, because of the song, and the movie. “Mm, well, I can’t exactly put on lipstick with my cleavage anyways,” Eddie murmurs, and Richie laughs out loud again. Eddie counts himself fortunate that comebacks like that almost seem to be second nature to him around Richie.

All their joking around has gotten them to the studio, and Eddie stops the car at a side entrance. “Alright. I can be back to pick you up-”

“You’re not gonna stay?”

Richie seems genuine, and Eddie blinks at him. “Well. I can. I don’t have any other jobs, I just thought-" 

“Don’t be silly, then, come in. I’ll get you a seat and it’ll be over before you know it. Then we can go out and celebrate or something.”

“Celebrate your first taping?”

“Why not? Come on.”

Eddie gets out and follows Richie into the studio. Once they realize Richie’s finally there, he’s yanked off, and Eddie is led out to the audience, and apparently taping of the parts that aren’t Richie have already started, so it’s only once there’s a break in the show that he gets to sit down and take it all in. Seeing celebrities in person that he’s actually familiar with never gets any less strange for Eddie - you’d think that it would with time, but it’s still always just as strange to realize they’re real and tangible. Particularly in this case, watching The Daily Show in progress means Jon Stewart is right there, and if Eddie were to abandon all sense of propriety, he could just sort of leap down and - well, do anything really.

It’s then he realizes that he’s in as some sort of plus one for Richie - did the people that work in production think they’re together? Are they speculating? Eddie doesn’t know enough about how any of this works - he’s normally just a head in the front seat, getting to people where they need to go. This entire thing happening with Richie - it’s unprecedented in more ways than Eddie can really count.

Eddie misses a pretty solid portion of the show freaking out like that, but once he’s got his shit together, he still catches a few segments of current events and Jon cracking jokes before they bring Richie out.

There’s some kind of story, this particular week, about how there was a picture in a magazine with a little boy with his toenails painted pink, and apparently everyone lost their shit about it. Eddie tries to avoid the news because it’s awful for his anxiety, so he hadn’t heard much of anything before now. He laughs at some of the jokes, but he still finds that ultimately he’s a little sad. 

It’s a nice relief when Richie’s introduced and walks out, waving at the audience. Apparently this is something promotional for Richie’s upcoming standup special or something. 

Jon clearly has questions prepared, and he starts to say something, but Richie cuts him off.

“Jon, can I just say something about this whole nail polish thing?”

“Why not? Fire away.”

“I do think you should know better than to give me free reign, but sure. I just wanted to say, I absolutely used to paint my nails in high school - now given, I would paint them black, because I thought I was cool, and clearly I’ve turned out fine. Fine as ever, in fact.” Some woman in the audience whistles, and Richie winks.

“I’m not sure you should be winking at the audience, Richie - especially not that woman who looks like she may be a schoolteacher.”

“Right, I’ll try to keep all winks directed at members of your audience I know personally, then.” Richie looks right at Eddie then, and winks, and Eddie knows that he’s blushing, and he’s glad that Jon says something so Richie looks back at him instead of Eddie. 

Jon does steer him onto the standup special, but before Eddie can really process what’s happening, suddenly they’re talking about the misconceptions about foot size and penis size, and it’s all Eddie can do not to hide his face in his hands. Instead, he just puts one hand over his eyes and laughs, realizing that for some reason, Richie never really surprises him completely - everything seems familiar, seems to line up with Eddie’s precise expectations, but only in the most absurd ways.

After all of that mess, the interview seems to be over. Richie walks offstage, and Eddie very safely zones out for the rest of the taping until he can leave and find Richie. Instead, Richie finds him, tapping him on the shoulder before steering him back out of the studio.

“What did you think?” he asks with a grin.

Eddie sighs. “I think you’re ridiculous, but that’s not really a change. Do you still not have another show today?”

“No, my dear Eds, and I still think we should celebrate.” He slings an arm over Eddie’s shoulder, while they’re still outside the car.

“Do you have an early call tomorrow?”

“Nope. Stand up show tomorrow night at 8, call’s not until late afternoon. Does that get your permission? Can we go to a bar? Do you know anywhere?”

Eddie knows plenty of places, but they’re nearly all gay bars. “Well. I know a few places. I don’t know if you’d like them.”

“I have no preferences whatsoever, so now I insist we go to one of your places. Carry on, my good fellow!” 

“Your British accent is terrible, please take it off before you get in my car.”

Richie grins and gestures like he’s zipping his lips before he gets in - Eddie knows better than to think that he’ll actually shut up, but he still gets into the car with only another roll of his eyes.

The least conspicuous place Eddie can think of is a bar he knows that also does karaoke - it’s still technically gay-friendly, and mostly gay clientele, and that’s why he goes, but he also knows some people do just go there for the karaoke, so he might get away with it. It’s early evening still, too - or it will be by the time they get there. 

“You realize I can’t drink with you if I’m driving, don’t you?”

Richie turns to him with a mildly horrified expression, and Eddie just smiles.

“Well for fuck’s sake, Eds, that’s not gonna work at all. Let’s take the car back to the hotel, we’ll take a cab from there - there’s no way we’re doing that.”

Cabs aren’t really his competition, because people hire him because they don’t want to take cabs - but he doesn’t normally take them himself. It’s sort of funny to think about - but if that’s what Richie wants to do, it seems logical for once, and he doesn’t exactly mind.

“Don’t call me Eds. But fine. I need food at some point, though. You probably do, too. Let’s stop by a restaurant on the way.”

“If I’m taking the night off, can we do pizza?”

Once they’ve dropped the car at the hotel and gotten it parked under Richie’s name, they take a cab and find a cheap by-the-slice place just a few blocks from the bar. He left his blazer in the car at the hotel, and Richie had run up to his room, leaving them both in just button-downs and trousers. Eddie rolls up his sleeves to feel a little less like he’s in his work clothes, and Richie follows suit. 

They eat cheap, delicious pizza, and Richie nearly makes him snort his drink out through his nose with a stupid joke about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being named mostly after gay artists, and then they walk to the bar.

It’s only after they get seated and order their first drinks - a gin and tonic for Eddie, a beer for Richie - that Eddie realizes just how strange the situation is.

“Don’t you have any other friends in the city? Why are you out drinking with me?”

Richie shrugs, and gives Eddie something close to a smile. “If I knew anyone, my whole needing a place to stay problem would be fucking solved, wouldn’t it? I mean, there’s some other comedians in the city, that sort of thing, but you tell people you barely know ‘Oh sure look me up when you’re in the city!’ and you don’t mean it. I mean, I might, but people don’t, generally. And if you subtract those people, the people I know in New York dwindles down to a solid zero. Plus, I don’t actually like any of them that much. I like you, Eddie Spaghetti.” 

Richie clearly doesn’t have any issue speaking his mind, which is nice, to know that he’s honest, but that also means that his very genuine compliments keep catching Eddie off-guard, and since Eddie’s barely gotten any compliments in his life, let alone ones like that from gorgeous men, they keep making him blush - or nearly blush. He’s trying to stop it. He’s not sure it’s working.

“Well. I like you, too, for what it’s worth. You know, excepting all the annoying bad jokes and nicknames.” 

“But Eds, that’s all I’ve got,” Richie says back, clearly pretending to be hurt in spite of his grin.

“Oh, true. Well. You know.”

Richie gives in and laughs, and Eddie snorts with him, and they clink their glasses together playfully before they both drink.

They’re a couple of drinks in, and both pleasantly buzzed, when Eddie catches Richie really looking around.

Eddie has a terrible feeling he’s caught.

Richie looks at the bartenders in tight shirts, who are men, and the couples in the other booths, who are men, and the guys seemingly on their way to hooking up in the corner (of course, tonight, of all nights), and he looks at Eddie with a surprised, and possibly delighted expression on his face.

“Edward Kaspbrak, did you bring me to a gay bar?”

“Okay, first of all, never call me that again, that’s so much worse than the terrible nicknames. Second of all, I, ah. I told you that you might not like it.”

“Are you kidding? I’m a little impressed. I didn’t think you had it in ya. You come here often, then?” Richie says, overtly flirtatious, and Eddie sighs.

“Save your cliché pickup lines for someone else, Richie. But, literally, yes I come here fairly often. They have karaoke and it’s nice and fairly casual, and it’s not like a club, it’s more like a bar. So. Yes.” 

He watches Richie give him and then the bar an appraising look. “It’s nice. Not really like the places out in LA, those tend to get a lot more rowdy - this is nice. You’re right.”

“So you... go to gay bars often?” 

Richie shrugs. “From time to time.” Then, he smirks a little. “You know, you can just ask. It’s 2014, and we’re in a gay bar. It’s not the 80s anymore.”

“Fine. Are you....?” Eddie doesn’t finish, because he’s still not sure what to ask.

“I’m bisexual. You?”

“I’m gay.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Eddie snorts. “God, that was terrible. Do you always go for just blatant dad jokes?”

“Only if I think they’ll land.” Richie winks at him again, and Eddie takes a drink, because he doesn’t know how else he’s going to make it through the night.

They sit there, drinking and chatting, until it’s actually time for karaoke to start - and Eddie’s just drunk enough that it seems like a great idea. He goes to sign up, and he drags Richie with him, by the wrist.

Richie’s wrist is thin enough that Eddie can nearly wrap his hand around it, and he can definitely feel the points of Richie’s bones, but his skin is warm, too, and soft, and Eddie really doesn’t want to let go. He signs his name on the sheet with his right hand while he’s still holding Richie’s wrist with his left.

He signs up to sing George Michael, because he can be as gay as he wants here, and Richie knows and he doesn’t care, and also maybe a little because he’s drunk.

He finally has to let go so Richie can sign up, too, and he uses his hands to hide the song from Eddie, and Eddie just giggles a little, excited to see Richie up onstage - excited to watch him perform, to hear his voice.

They spend the time before they get called up having another drink - and then someone sings Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Richie pulls him out onto the dance floor. Richie’s got Eddie’s hands in both of his, and mostly he just tugs him around the dance floor to the beat - save one very dramatic twirl at one point, that leaves Eddie dizzy and falling back into Richie, hands landing on his chest as he laughs. 

Eddie’s still a little dizzy when they call him up to the stage, but he pushes Richie off and shoos him towards the seats and goes up to sing. He picked George Michael’s “Faith” specifically, because he watched the video every time they played it on MTV when he was young, and he’s known the words by heart ever since. Plus, it would be ridiculous if he tried to pretend he didn’t know that the song could be kind of sexy, or that he hadn’t picked it with that and the fact that Richie would be watching in mind. 

He may not have a guitar, and he may not have the outfit (with him at least, but he definitely wore it as a costume once in high school), but he can’t keep himself from dancing at least a little as he sings. He takes the opportunity to run a hand across his chest as he sings “_ Well I guess it would be nice, if I could touch your body, I know not everybody, has got a body like you _,” and he hears a whistle. It was clearly Richie, so Eddie uses his courage, mostly liquid, to wink back at him. He shakes his hips throughout the song, and he’s grinning and a little out of breath when he comes off the stage. 

Richie gets called up next, so they only pass each other as Eddie walks back towards the booth, but Richie just looks at him, his eyes dark and lingering, and Eddie bites his lip and fights a shiver as he sits down.

The song may have been a secret up until that point, but as soon as the music starts, Eddie recognizes it - Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight.” It’s incredibly blatantly sexual, well beyond Eddie’s choice, and Eddie blushes a little - but he also hopes it can be mistaken for the flush of alcohol, because God, he’s a grown man. 

When Richie actually starts to sing, Eddie is captivated. His voice is raspy, probably from smoking in high school or something, because he seems the type. The lyrics, in Richie’s voice, are even worse than Eddie remembers. “_ I feel a hunger, it’s a hunger that tries to keep a man awake at night _.” He’s a hell of a performer - dramatically gesturing and doing ridiculous expressions, using the microphone as a prop as much as he’s actually using it - but he keeps his eyes on Eddie’s the entire time. Eddie can’t look away either.

Around the second chorus, Eddie realizes the joke of the song, and he laughs a little, and Richie grins to watch him. The joke doesn’t take away the fact that Richie is fucking breathtaking on a stage - but Eddie tries to let it distract him just so he doesn’t pull Richie into the booth and kiss him as soon as he gets back, because he still has to drive Richie for at least the next couple of weeks that he was paid for in advance, and having sex with him right now would be a terrible idea. Right? Right.

Richie finally wraps up the song and jumps down off the stage, heading for Eddie.

“What’d you think, Eddie Spaghetti?”

“I think I’m still not drunk enough to let you get away with calling me that. And, ha ha, I get it, I’m your driver so most nights I am literally taking you home.”

Richie winks at him. “Knew you’d catch on. I saw you laugh on stage, though, you can’t fool me with your fake laughter.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

With a laugh, Richie slides into the booth and puts his arm around Eddie. They order more drinks, both buzzing with adrenaline from going up on stage, Richie even more than Eddie, clearly.

By the time they’re winding down, they’ve even done a couple of shots, and Eddie is well and truly wasted. He’s leaning into Richie and giggling at something he said when the announcer makes the last call for karaoke sign ups.

Richie suddenly shifts, alert, and Eddie has to try and hold his own weight so he doesn’t fall into Richie’s lap.

“What, what is it?” he asks.

“I have an idea,” Richie says urgently. “Do you trust me?”

Eddie smiles at him, and with absolute drunken sincerity, he says, “Of course.

Richie pulls Eddie by the hand to the sign up, and puts their names in for a duet. They’re called up almost immediately, because the night is slowing down, and it’s only then that Eddie finds out the song they’re singing - “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Eddie gets pulled up onto the stage, and he and Richie both get mics, and they don’t even discuss their parts before the song starts - with Richie being the obvious natural performer, Eddie takes the backup on the verses, and Richie grins at him like that’s what he intended the whole time.

It’s almost too much to take, having Richie performing at him within arm’s length - especially since as Richie sings “_ And then I see the look in your eyes _ ,” he turns to Eddie and caresses his cheek, gently. When the chorus comes along, Eddie takes the opportunity to sing with Richie, and to get as into the performance of it as he does. They’re both belting the words, gesturing dramatically, and Eddie starts taking chances to flirt with Richie, too. He reaches out to grab Richie’s shirt at “ _ Holding on, forever _ ,” and when they get to “ _ I really need you tonight _ ,” Eddie reaches over and uses his hand on Richie’s face to turn him, so they’re singing while looking into each other’s eyes on “ _ Forever’s gonna start tonight, forever’s gonna start tonight _.”

The whole song is both of them pulling sight gags based on the lyrics, with Richie doing dramatic turns toward or away from Eddie, and Eddie using the chorus to prove that he and Richie perform extremely well together - which surprises Eddie as much as anyone, frankly.

When the song is over, everyone that’s left in the bar starts clapping, and even the bartender give them a whistle. Richie takes a dramatic bow, and holds Eddie’s hand so Eddie goes down with him.

The bartender gives them both a free drink for the song, but once they’ve finished that, Eddie knows he’s reached his limit - and it’s getting pretty late anyways. 

“C’mon, let’s go. Let’s take a cab back,” he says to Richie.

“You know, Eds, you, uh, you went a little harder than I expected. Maybe you should stay with me tonight.”

“Trying to take me home tonight, hmm Tozier?”

“Pretty funny how that turned out, isn’t it? Come on, Eds.”

Richie helps Eddie out of the bar and calls the cab - he’s a little better off because he was drinking beer some of the time when Eddie was drinking liquor, even if he actually had more to drink than Eddie.

They get into the cab and Eddie leans against Richie all the way back to his hotel. They make it out and up to his room, and Eddie fully manages to walk on his own and not fall over or make an idiot of himself. Even though he’s very drunk, he knows himself enough to know he’s not at risk of being sick - he will absolutely be hungover in the morning, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.

When they are in Richie’s room, Eddie falls gratefully onto the bed before he considers the full implications of that. 

“Are we gonna share the bed?” he asks.

“It’s big enough for two, right? Unless you wanna call the front desk at three AM.”

“Nope, nope, I’m good. This is good. Fine.”

He’s mumbling, really, into the pillows. He’s still fully dressed. Richie comes out of the bathroom in his pajamas, and his glasses, and Eddie sees him and just stares again.

“You wanna borrow some clothes?” Richie asks.

Eddie nods, and hauls himself up and to the bathroom. He changes into an oversized shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and they smell like Richie. They’re soft, too, the perfect pajamas to still be drunk in, and Eddie hums happily as he goes back out and falls into bed again, this time next to Richie. 

“Tonight was amazing,” he says out loud, turning his head to look at Richie. “You were amazing. We were amazing.”

“Yeah, we were, Eds.” Richie reaches out and squeezes his hand, and Eddie squeezes back.

After a moment, he feels gentle hands on his face, removing his glasses to set them aside, and he smiles gratefully at Richie. “Thanks. And... thanks for.... this.” Eddie gestures his hand around, trying to illustrate what he means, but he feels like as drunk as he is it just sort of comes out as a very flamboyant wrist twirl. “I haven’t had this much fun in... years, Rich.” Eddie isn’t sure where the nickname came from - it just rolled off his tongue like an instinct or a muscle memory, but it makes Richie smile.

“I’m glad.” 

Their voices are both soft, and it’s only shortly after that when Eddie drifts off into sleep, the way eased by the fact that he fortunately got drunk enough to be sleepy. He falls asleep still thinking of Richie’s smile, of his glasses and his eyes in the dim light of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to be busy tomorrow so i wanted to go ahead and post chapter 2! expect chapter 3 sometime closer to the end of this week. thank you all so much for your comments so far, i really appreciate them!
> 
> also, i imagine eddie's driving playlist is just his canonical character playlist from 2017.
> 
> this fic also has a playlist, though, which includes the songs from karaoke and you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/burntheghosts/playlist/5UR6DJCrNN83CrfsyygZmM?si=nzEktWX5RjSTM21HpG28dg)! feel free to enjoy!


	3. ageless heart

When he wakes up, Eddie feels like shit. Frankly, he feels sort of like he got run over by several garbage trucks. His mouth tastes disgusting, his head aches, and his stomach is churning. When he opens his eyes, they hurt too, and then they show him where he is - he didn’t forget, really. Parts of the night are blurry, but nothing’s a total blackout. Some part of him almost wishes he could forget just how unprofessional he was. Fortunately, for the current moment’s aches and pains, there’s a glass of water and a couple of pills waiting in front of him. He takes the pills, swallows, and cautiously looks around.

There’s no one in the room. Richie’s clearly off somewhere. Eddie sighs and closes his eyes again, grateful for the one moment to himself. He fumbles blindly around the bed and nightstand for his phone and finally bumps into it. When he can force himself to open his eyes again, he finds that he has a text from Richie.

_ i went to grab some food and leave you to catch some extra beauty sleep. grabbed an extra toothbrush from reception, too, so you can get yourself all cleaned up before i get back - i’ll bring you food, though, so stick around _.

It’s a surprisingly coherent text - he probably spent some time on it. This whole thing seems as awkward as a morning after, only there’s no real reason, because nothing really happened. Maybe it’ll be better once Richie gets back.

Going into the bathroom, he finds his clothes from yesterday folded and waiting on him, and the extra toothbrush Richie promised. The toiletries are also hotel-provided, so Eddie decides to grab a quick shower, too, in the hopes that he’ll both feel and smell less terrible by the time Richie returns with breakfast.

The shower is quick, because Eddie refuses to linger or think about it. He tames his hair as best he can while it’s still wet, puts his clothes and glasses back on, and straightens up in front of the mirror. He looks tired. Hungover. Still, it could be worse. He sighs, pushes up his glasses, and heads back out into the room.

Richie still isn’t back, which means he must have left only shortly before Eddie woke up. He must have seen Eddie asleep - and now that he’s alone with his thoughts, it seems the panic is starting to set in. Trying to shove it down, Eddie pulls his phone out again and flicks around for a distraction. He’s still aimlessly opening and closing apps when Richie comes back through the door.

“Oh. Hey, Eds. I thought maybe you’d text back when you woke up.”

“You’re still calling me that, huh?”

“Even I realize it’s a little early for Eddie Spaghetti.”

Eddie snorts, in spite of himself, and forces himself to make eye contact. Richie’s looking a little rumpled - he clearly hasn’t showered yet - but he does have coffee in both hands, so Eddie stands up and goes over to accept one. “I’m letting that slide because you have coffee.”

“I think that’s a fair trade.” Richie grins at him, and Eddie looks down at the cup in his hands.

They both drink their coffee in relative silence, and Richie hands Eddie a bagel, which he takes with a simple thanks.

At some point, he’s going to have to address his total lapse in professional behavior, or admit that he feels a little weird about everything. He decides he can at least wait until he’s finished the coffee.

When he’s mostly finished, Richie’s kind of looking at him - if Eddie were more presumptuous, he’d almost call the expression _ fond_, but it’s absolutely too early to go places like that. Instead, Eddie scrunches up his nose while he tries to think of something witty to say. His stomach is still unsteady though, and his headache isn’t totally gone, so wit is currently beyond him.

“If you’re going to make fun of me you can go ahead - I think you get free reign after last night. As many jokes as you want. Or maybe a new driver if you’d rather have one that doesn’t get drunk and pass out in your bed, I could probably arrange that, too, just say the word!”

When Eddie finally gets the courage to look back up at Richie’s face, Richie’s just looking at him like he’s crazy.

“Eds, come on. After your fucking spectacular job at karaoke last night? How could any other driver ever compete? I had fun. You said you had fun. Given you were drunk, but-”

“I had fun,” Eddie says, maybe a little too quickly. “Of course I had fun, I wasn’t, like, lying last night. I just know that it was all horribly unprofessional and you’d be well within your rights to take offense to that.”

“And you really think I’m gonna take offense to that? Me, the guy that insists on sitting up front with you and overslept the first day you came to pick me up? Look, if you wanna keep driving me shit’s gonna get weird, I don’t know how to do this normally, I’m horrible at being famous. I’m not even that famous. I meant everything I’ve said about the fact that I like hanging out with you - you don’t have to pretend you’re just my driver. I’m not even the one paying you. As far as I’m concerned, say whatever the fuck you want. We’re just hanging out.”

Eddie blinks a few times. He really doesn’t know what to say to any of that. If Richie’s fine with everything, then - well, everything is fine. Eddie’s anxiety is probably going to need some time to process that. Meanwhile he just nods, brushes the bagel crumbs off his trousers and stands up. “Thank you, then. Right now I still probably need to run home and clean up before I get you to your show tonight.” He’s making a swift retreat and he knows it - but genuinely, Richie’s earnest kindness is a lot to deal with when Eddie’s this hungover. As a sort of olive branch, or as an indication that he’s not just running away from Richie himself, he tacks on, “If you want me to pick you up early, though, I can.”

Richie stands, too, then, and cracks a smile. “Yeah, let’s do dinner or something. Just go get whatever and head back this way, I’ll see you around.” He reaches over and squeezes Eddie’s shoulder, and then Eddie’s just walking out the door, sort of in a daze.

The other shoe, if it was going to drop, probably would have dropped right then. Instead, Eddie’s clearly in the process of making friends with Richie, and if Richie gets the job at SNL, there’s always the possibility that… Eddie stops himself there again. He can still only go so far with his expectations.

He drives back to his own house basically on autopilot, mostly in contemplative quiet. Really, if he gets down to it, he and Richie barely know each other. Even just thinking about it like that doesn’t seem quite right, though. There’s something here that Eddie hasn’t felt… Well. He doesn’t know that he’s ever felt it. If Richie feels even a fraction of that, it seems worth pursuing, and worth hanging on to.

Thinking of Richie’s show later that night, and the fact that Richie will probably invite him to stay again, Eddie digs something out of his closet that’s a little more casual than his typical suits and blazers - a nice polo, some cuffed jeans. He wants to look nice, but not out of place. They probably won’t go anywhere too fancy for dinner, either, so again, daytime date clothes. Not that Eddie even really remembers the last time he went on a date. And not that this is a real date.

This kind of fretting follows Eddie as he packs an overnight bag to throw in the car, just in case, and as he drives back to Richie’s hotel. Finally he puts on some music and texts Richie as he gets stuck in traffic.

**I’m heading back your way but it might take me a while to get there**

_ rip mr. eddie spaghetti stuck in manhattan traffic on a friday, he lived a good life _

**You realize I live here so I have to do this every Friday**

_ and i have no idea how you do it, you’re like an x-man with an extremely specific mutation _

**Okay, comic book references aside, did you have any particular ideas for dinner?**

_ think we should come back to the comic book references - but nah not really. if you know somewhere good where no one will bother us feel free to make suggestions or just whisk me away when you get here, you’re the new york expert _

**Any preferences?**

_ i love a good taco _

_ that’s not a euphemism _

**Sure it’s not. I think I have an idea, but you’ll just have to wait until I get there**

_ ugh. fine _

Eddie smiles at his phone and rolls his eyes as he finally edges toward the place where he can make his turn. It’s easy, after that, to tap his hands on the steering wheel in time with the music and to feel finally free of his racing thoughts, even if it’s only temporary.

He texts Richie again when he pulls up to the hotel.

**I’m here. Do I need to come upstairs and retrieve you again or do you think you can make it down here without help?**

_ you’re one to talk after i had to get you up here last night _

**I told you free reign on jokes this morning and you didn’t take me up on it. I feel like you missed your window of opportunity**

_ and yet i feel like if you’re gonna talk shit you need to be prepared for the consequences spaghetti man _

**Oh God please stop talking and just get down here**

Richie does in fact make it down to the front of the hotel, where he slides easily into Eddie’s passenger seat, wearing his contacts and another patterned button down. “I may be down here, but I’m not going to stop talking.”

“I’d expect nothing less. Music or no music?”

“I think I’m gonna put something on this time.” Richie waves an ipod with his left hand before switching it out with Eddie’s on the aux cord. The sounds of David Bowie fill the car shortly after and Eddie grins. Richie looks over at him and smiles. “I knew after karaoke you had good taste.”

“Let’s just hope you still think that after you eat with me.”

They make it to the little hole-in-the-wall taco place relatively unscathed, and as soon as the two of them walk into the restaurant, Richie turns back just to grin at Eddie, and Eddie feels like he must have done something right. They find seats at a cramped little table in a corner, their knees nudging every time one of them adjusts. Their food arrives quickly, cutting off an animated conversation about their favorite records, and the benefits of still listening to vinyl. 

Richie listens to more 70s rock, compared to Eddie’s 80s pop tendencies, but there’s certainly some overlap in their tastes. They both love Bowie, and Queen, and The B-52s. Eddie gets to watch, inexplicably fond, as Richie waxes poetic about the merits of Led Zeppelin on vinyl.

At some point they branch out into talking about movies, and Richie admits that he always sort of thought maybe he’d end up working in movies at some point - he just hasn’t yet. He talks about cult films he used to rent on VHS in college, and every time he gets excited his hands move with his words like he absolutely can’t keep still. Just listening to his passion and seeing it in action is its own kind of show, and Eddie finds himself absolutely captivated.

When it’s time, they make their way to the venue, and Richie does invite Eddie to stay again. It turns out Richie is wildly hilarious when no one’s trying to steer him with questions. He leaps from one topic to the next, actively runs across the stage to demonstrate his points, plays with the microphone cord like it’s a particularly long and elegant scarf. His bisexuality even receives mention in his routine, so clearly he’s out in the comedy community as well. Eddie’s never seen anyone who wasn’t a musician hold a stage and a crowd so well - he’s strangely proud of this man he only hopes he can call a friend.

After the show, someone comes and whisks Eddie backstage, where Richie pulls him into a one-armed hug. He’s smiling brightly, still sweating a little but absolutely incandescent from the high of the performance, like karaoke night on steroids.

“Hey, I wanna talk but I have to go see comedians and writers and big-shots who were out in the audience tonight - I’ll try to wrap it up in like an hour or so, then you can take me back and get yourself home.”

“Take all the time you need, it’s my job - great show, though!”

“Thanks, Eds!” Richie calls as he walks away.

Eddie, embarrassingly, leans against a backstage wall, a little weak in the knees. It’s undeniable at this point that his feelings for Richie have blossomed into a full-blown crush. It would make Eddie feel like a teenager again - if he’d ever felt like this as a teenager, or remembered it. Instead, it just makes him feel like he’s in a cheesy 90s rom-com; the gay side plot that didn’t quite make it into _ Love, Actually _, airport meet-cute and all.

It’s easier than Eddie thought it would be to blow time backstage at the venue. He climbs up to the lighting catwalk and looks at his phone for a while, looking at clips of Richie’s old stand-up. There’s an old Comedy Central special that isn’t very long, and Eddie snort-laughs his way through the entire thing. When his phone battery starts to edge towards 20 percent, Eddie climbs back down and creeps around the empty backstage area, looking through the dressing rooms and noting band stickers and carved names on concrete bricks and wooden tables.

Once a little over an hour has passed, he goes out into the lobby and sees Richie talking over by the bar. The crowd has dwindled significantly, and for all Richie’s talk of corporate big-wigs, he’s now clearly talking to a teenage girl with close-cropped hair who looks at Richie like he put the stars in the sky. Having seen the show, Eddie definitely gets it.

Richie grins at her, and shakes her hand, and she walks away looking a little starstruck. Eddie smiles at her as she passes, and she looks at him and smiles back. It’s a good moment.

“Eds! Great timing, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

It’s obvious that someone’s bought Richie a few drinks, but he’s not as drunk as either of them were on karaoke night. Still, there’s an easy kind of tipsy affection in the way Richie throws an arm over Eddie’s shoulders and tugs him close.

He gets Richie to the car and into the front seat before he tries to talk. “So any luck with the studio people and all that?”

Richie smiles and shrugs. “Eh, I don’t know. Fuckin’ impossible to tell with people like that. I love talking to people that really enjoy the show you know, but when it comes from people who scout it always sounds so insincere. The people from SNL keep saying they like me but it really comes down to the audition.”

“And when is that?”

Richie closes his eyes and leans back against the seat. “Next Wednesday. Still have some time before I fucking choke and die in front of Lorne Michaels himself.”

“Oh, Rich, come on. Don’t be ridiculous!” Richie scoffs, and Eddie reaches over just to nudge him with an elbow. “You put on a fucking great show in there, you own a stage better than most of the people I’ve seen on SNL. I’ve never seen anything like it. And you know I don’t just have to say that, I mean technically speaking we still barely know each other, but you’re really, really good. You’re gonna make it.”

Eddie hits a crosswalk and gets forced to stop, so he risks a glance away from the road and towards Richie. Richie’s got his head turned all the way towards Eddie, leaned back against the headrest of the seat. His dark eyes practically glitter in the combination of darkness and city lights. Eddie struggles to force himself to turn away again.

“Thanks, Eds.” There’s a pause, and Eddie can hear Richie shift in the seat a little, his clothes shifting against the leather upholstery. “For the only person I really know in New York, and for a relative stranger, you’re really one hell of a friend.”

Eddie’s grateful that the dark hides his expression a little as he goes back to keeping his eyes on the road.. “Thanks, Rich. You are, too.”

“I don’t know about that. Mostly all I’ve done is sit in your car and annoy the shit out of you. You’re the one driving me around and showing me all the best sights - the hottest karaoke bar in New York and all that.”

“You gave me a place to stay after the karaoke bar, Rich. And you didn’t have to invite me into your shows, either. Most people don’t.”

“Really?”

Eddie glances over and finds Richie completely turned to face him, bunched up in the seat and looking totally confused on top of that. He laughs a little. “Yeah, Rich. Most people actually do just treat me like their driver.”

“Their loss, then.”

Honestly Eddie doesn’t have any idea of how to respond to that, so he falls silent instead, and the sounds of Manhattan traffic keep them company all the way back to the hotel. Sometimes Richie hums something under his breath, but neither of them move to put any music on and break the delicate atmosphere they’ve developed inside the car.

When they finally pull up, Eddie gets out, too, and goes around to face Richie. “You good to get upstairs?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not drunk, mostly just tired. Go ahead and get yourself home, I’ll see you tomorrow - early call for a talk show again! Don’t forget.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“Alright there, Eddie Spaghetti, no need to be a smartass,” Richie grumbles back, but he’s smiling a little.

For a moment, both of them stand there. Eddie doesn’t really want to go home to his big empty house and leave Richie here - but he can’t ask to stay again, either, it would just be ridiculous. “Okay, well. See you tomorrow, Rich.”

“See you, Eds.”

They both shuffle their feet, and then Richie leans in to hug him quickly before beating a hasty retreat into the hotel lobby. The casual affection leaves Eddie floating a little again as he gets back into the car and makes his way home.

As he suspected, the house seems quiet and lonely after spending the night with Richie, and his bed in particular looks cold and just enormous. His consolation is that he only needs to sleep there and then he’ll be picking Richie up in the morning again, in for another day of his very abrupt new normal.

It’s incredible to think about how quickly Richie changed his life. Everything about his life before Richie showed up seems dull in comparison, and he doesn’t know now how he’d go back to it. Of course, if Richie gets the part on SNL, maybe he won’t have to. By then they’ll be friends, and there’s a real possibility that it could seem slightly less insane to invite Richie to stay with him at least temporarily.

Something about just being around Richie seems to make everything else seem brighter - like someone turned up the saturation on his life.

It doesn’t make it any easier to fall asleep that night specifically, but it does at least give him something to look forward to for the morning, and that helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i decided to go ahead and post chapter 3 a little ahead of schedule! chapter 4 should be coming this weekend - i hope everyone is still enjoying the fic. i also went ahead and updated the length - it uhhhhh might be longer than anticipated! hope everyone is also still along for that ride.
> 
> thank you as always for all your comments, they absolutely keep me motivated to keep working on this beast of a fic!


	4. judgement made

Sleeping at home, Eddie has a nightmare. They’re the kind he’s had for years - there’s nothing left when he wakes up except a lingering sense of anxiety, a tightness in his chest. Having Richie around had somehow almost made him forget he had nightmares. The thought is one of those that makes him uncomfortable as soon as he has it, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. It feels selfish and presumptuous and just absurd, but here’s something different about Richie - something special about the connection Eddie is feeling.

Just like always, he locks it away, puts it in the back of his mind and refuses to dwell on it. It’s the best way he can face the day and the welcome distraction of Richie’s company.

He has enough time that morning, after waking up so early, to stop and grab some breakfast for himself and Richie. After Richie got him coffee the morning he was so hung over, Eddie feels like he needs to pay Richie back somehow. Getting him breakfast in return seems like an effective system. He picks up bagels from his favorite place, some excellent coffee, and then he makes his way to the hotel.

**I hope you’re awake, I’m bringing breakfast up to your room**

_ if breakfast includes coffee you’re my hero and i’ll let you in, if it doesn’t then i’m hiring a new driver _

**Yes Richie, of course there’s coffee**

_ thank fuckin god _

When Richie opens the door, he’s mostly dressed but he still has his glasses on. He reaches for the coffee and Eddie offers him one.

Richie takes it, takes a sip, and makes a noise that is frankly speaking, obscene. Eddie stands frozen in the doorway for a moment until the door literally starts to close on his leg and he stumbles into the room.

“I would make some kind of statement about how you really didn’t have to do this, Eds, but actually I think you just saved my life, so I’m just gonna say thank you.”

“There’s bagels, too,” Eddie offers, shaking the bag in Richie’s direction.

With another grateful sound, Richie takes the bag and sits down on his bed. Eddie takes the one chair in the room, leaving some distance between the two of them, because it’s just entirely too early for anything else.

They both eat in relative quiet, until Richie says, “I’m pretty sure this is the best bagel I’ve ever had in my entire fucking life.”

“What else is New York for?”

“Honestly, I’m missing LA less and less every day.”

They both smile at each other before they finish up their breakfast, and even after Richie puts his contacts in and finishes getting ready, they actually make it to the studio a little bit early for Richie’s call time.

Just like last time, Richie invites Eddie in to watch the show, and Eddie gets to listen to his ridiculous jokes while he clearly veers wildly off-script.

That day is the beginning of a kind of routine for the two of them. On talk show days, Eddie arrives in the morning, always with breakfast for both of them. If they have the time they eat in Richie’s room, but if they don’t Richie eats on the way. With the food and coffee as motivation, they usually manage to get Richie to the studio by his call time.

On late show days, sometimes they go out the night before, either back to the karaoke bar or to an even quieter pub, where they can talk about basically anything and everything. Richie never seems to run out of things to talk about, even though Eddie feels like he has little to say in comparison, having told most of his interesting stories of adulthood to Richie in the car on the way from the airport.

Neither of them ever drink as much as they did on karaoke night. Whether it’s their age or a general sense of self-preservation or a kind of self-consciousness about how close they’d come that night to _ something_, it goes unaddressed. They don’t talk about it, it’s just true. Both of them drink, but neither of them get drunk.

Days pass easily between the talk shows and stand up, the meals and the long conversations at bars. It’s Tuesday night when Richie pauses before getting out of the car at the hotel, looking nervous.

“What is it, Rich?” Eddie asks, turning to face him.

“The SNL audition is tomorrow. We’ve been having such a good time that I think it sort of snuck up on me.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Richie shrugs, and frowns down at his jeans, trying to pick at them. “Neither? Maybe good, maybe you’re right. I’m just nervous. I don’t wanna fuck this up, I feel like I’m going to.”

“Hey, Richie, look at me.” He does - and there in the quiet space of the car, he looks especially vulnerable in a way Eddie never expected. Almost like a kid, in spite of their age. “You’re gonna be fine. I’ll get here early, with breakfast, like always, and if I can help you with anything I will, and if I can’t, I’ll just try and keep you out of your head til I drop you off. Okay?”

Richie takes a deep breath and nods, then tilts his head back against the car seat. “I don’t think you can stay for the audition tomorrow. You’ll probably have to leave and come back.”

“Do you want me to hang out tonight?” Eddie asks, his mouth getting ahead of itself again. He bites his lip, afraid he’s gone too far, but Richie just smiles and shakes his head.

“No, thanks, Eds. I need to try and get some sleep. I’ll just see you in the morning.”

Eddie spends a restless night at his own place, sleeping only in fits and starts. When he makes it to the hotel in the morning, he finds that it looks like Richie didn’t sleep any better than he did. They eat breakfast quietly, and Richie barely eats anything. They don’t put on music as Eddie drives, and when he stops in front of the building, he gets out just to stand next to Richie.

They both look at the door, and Richie looks back at Eddie. “Okay. See you on the other side, Eds.”

Before he can talk himself out of it, Eddie reaches out and pulls Richie into a hug, lingering for just a moment before he pulls away. “Good luck, Rich. You’re gonna be fine. Just text me when you get out.”

Richie nods, and smiles, and then he goes in. It feels abruptly anticlimatic, but Eddie really can’t follow him in. He just has to blow time until Richie texts him.

It doesn’t take long for him to start feeling antsy. He drives around for a while, listening to music and tapping his hands on the steering wheel. It starts to feel like he’s the one waiting on the important news. An hour goes by, then another. Eddie assumes that it’s a multi-step audition process. Maybe there’s a performance of some kind for one group and then another. Maybe they pair people up. Suddenly, Eddie wishes he’d done some kind of research on how the process works - maybe he should have asked Richie more about it, but he was afraid bringing it up would just worsen Richie’s nerves about the whole thing.

Part of him wants to drive home, but if he gets all the way home and then Richie calls he’d just have to turn back around and drive back into the city. Instead, he drives to The Met and wanders for a couple of hours, still constantly checking his phone every couple of minutes like a compulsion.

Another couple of hours pass, and it hits late afternoon, edging into dusk. Eddie finally breaks down and texts Richie himself. He walks to his car before he does it, hoping that maybe at this point Richie’s just had such a good audition he’s still spending some time with other people he auditioned with. Maybe he finally made other New York friends.

**Any updates?**

He’s left sitting there in his car for a few moments, just anxiously tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He waits longer than he’d normally have to wait for a reply from Richie.

Then, Richie calls. Richie never calls. Eddie’s heart starts to race.

“Rich? Hello? Is something wrong?”

“You remember you told me to call you when I need a ride? The first time you texted me?” It’s Richie, which is comforting at least, but he sounds miserable, and he’s slurring his words a little.

“Yeah, Rich, I remember.”

“I think you should probably come get me.”

He’s obviously drunk, and now is not normally the time that either of them would even start drinking. Immediately Eddie’s brain starts to spiral out of control, presenting him with every possible option on what already could have gone wrong, what could have led to this, and what might go wrong still. None of that is going to get him to Richie any faster, though - he has to focus. “Okay, I can do that. Are you still at the studio?”

“No, no. No. ‘M at a bar. Round the corner from the studio.”

Quickly, Eddie starts the car and heads generally back towards where he dropped Richie off that morning. “Do you know the name of the place?”

There’s some rustling on the other end of the line. “No, but I can find out, hold on.” Then, Richie clearly moves the phone away from his face, because his voice gets muffled as he shouts for the bartender. After an exchange that Eddie can barely hear, Richie gets back on the line, snickering. “Fuck, okay, you’re never gonna believe this but apparently it’s called The Pig N’ Whistle, fuckin’ go figure. But I think - shit, yeah, I think they’re kind of mad at me so maybe hurry up if you can.”

“Right, I’ll be right there. See you soon.” And with that, Eddie hangs up.

It’s probably some of the fastest driving Eddie’s ever done. He nearly runs a stoplight, which he can’t remember ever having done in his entire driving career.

There’s a possibility that the audition went so well that Richie went out to celebrate - but then why wouldn’t he have invited Eddie? Instead, the sheer tone of voice Richie used seems to imply bad news. Is it possible Richie blew off the audition entirely? Whatever might have happened, Eddie's own anxiety won't shut the fuck up about it, and his own thoughts plague him all the way to the bar.

When he gets to The Pig N’ Whistle (God, Richie really wasn’t kidding), he parks the car somewhere he definitely shouldn’t just to run inside.

Eddie spots Richie almost immediately. He’s sitting on a barstool, sort of hanging half off of it, his head resting on his arms on the bar. Eddie walks over and puts a hand on his shoulder, just to nudge him gently.

“Hey, Rich, come on, let’s get you home.”

Richie lifts his head and gives Eddie a big, drunken smile first. Then a shadow crosses his face as he tries to stand up on his own. “I fucked it up, Eds. I know I did. Crowd hated me, I could tell.”

As he starts to stumble, Eddie wraps an arm around his shoulders and takes some of his weight. At least it sounds like Richie did go to the audition. “Well let’s not worry about that right now, let’s just get you to the car.”

“Hey.” A stern voice comes from behind the bar. “Watch out for your boyfriend, there. We had to cut him off.”

Flustered, Eddie just sort of nods at the bartender and doesn’t manage to correct him. Instead, he tries to focus on getting both himself and Richie out of the bar and back outside, and then into the car and back to the hotel.

Once he’s basically poured Richie into the passenger seat, Eddie gets the car moving as quickly as possible just to avoid a parking ticket.

“So how long have you been at the bar, Rich?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie can see Richie shrug. “I dunno. Since I bombed my fuckin’ audition. Don’t know how long I was there.”

Eddie sighs. That’s one clear answer. “Okay. I’m glad you called me. Hopefully you’ll be fine once you’ve slept some of this off.”

Richie mumbles something under his breath, but Eddie makes the decision that he isn’t going to try and get anything real out of Richie when he’s so clearly wasted. If the audition really went this poorly, poking at that wound obviously isn’t going to help right now, and Eddie really doubts that he’s going to get Richie to be logical right now either. Instead, it’ll be easier to just get Richie into his hotel room and safely asleep for the night.  
  
When they get to the hotel, though, that option vanishes quickly. The entrance where Eddie would normally drop Richie off is surrounded by people with cameras. Whether they’re for Richie or for someone else doesn’t matter - if Eddie practically carries Richie inside, they’re both gonna end up in some shitty tabloid, because Richie just auditioned for SNL, and someone somewhere will think it’s viable news.

Thinking on his feet, Eddie parks the car around the corner, and then turns to Richie.

“Rich. Hey. Look, I’m gonna take you to my house because there’s a bunch of asshole paparazzi outside your hotel right now, but I’m gonna run up and get your glasses and some pajamas for you. Can you hand me your room key and tell me where your glasses are?”

Richie blinks at him and laughs. “Gonna take me home tonight, huh Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie sighs. “Richie. Where are your glasses?”

“Uh. Bathroom? By the sink somewhere. And here, let me just,” Richie reaches into his pockets and fumbles for his wallet, managing to get out his room key and toss it in Eddie’s direction.

Taking the key, Eddie gets out of the car and then leans back in. “Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Fortunately, since he’s alone, it’s easy for Eddie to weave his way through the crowd of paparazzi and make it to the door. From what he overhears, they are waiting for someone in particular who just happens to be staying in the same hotel, but he’s still glad he’s decided to play it safe and keep Richie in the car.

The glasses are where Richie said they’d be, and Eddie grabs his contact case and a pair of pajamas as well, shoving them into a bag before he rushes back downstairs.

Richie is still in the car, but he’s starting to look a little worse for wear. “Eds, can I go home now?” he asks, miserably, and Eddie feels abruptly terrible.

“Yeah, just. Hang on, Rich, we’re gonna get you home.”

He tosses the bag into the back and drives to his own house as quickly as he possibly can. He keeps an eye on Richie all the way there, but he never looks so sick that Eddie feels the need to pull over.

Getting Richie into the house basically means carrying him, but Eddie does it all the same. He puts the bag on one shoulder and Richie on the other and staggers into the house, making a beeline for the guest room on the first floor.

He sits Richie on the bed, pulls out everything he brought, and presents it in a pile.

“Alright. The bathroom is right through that door if you need it. Make sure to take your contacts out before bed, put on the pajamas if you want. I’m going to get you some painkillers and a glass of water - you should probably have water before bed if you can because the worst part of a hangover is generally dehydration, so. I’ll be right back.”

Richie really only has the reaction time to blink at him before Eddie rushes out again.

When he comes back with the glass of water and the pills, it does look like Richie got his contacts off, as the case is open on the bedside table, but he didn’t really make it out of his clothes, and he’s already asleep - or most of the way there. Eddie nudges Richie a little so he’s laying on his side, which is the safer way to sleep when you’ve been drinking too much. He takes the trashcan out of the bathroom and brings it to set it beside the bed. He adjusts the pills and the water so they’re artfully arranged on the table, he closes Richie’s contact case, and then he just sort of. Stops. He hasn’t really stopped, after all, since Richie called him at least an hour ago.

No matter what happened with the audition, Richie’s here. He’s fine - or he will be in the morning. He’s breathing, and Eddie has provided him with everything he really can, short of somehow getting the excess alcohol out of Richie himself. This isn’t the end of the world, there’s no catastrophe, and Eddie helped him avoid the possibility of embarrassing himself all over the internet and the news.

This is a major upset in their routine, and not something Eddie had expected of Richie, but every man has his vices. In this particular case, Richie is in a strange situation as well, auditioning for the part of a lifetime.

They can talk about all of it tomorrow, assuming Richie doesn’t just disappear, but Eddie really doesn’t think he will.

Before he can make himself leave the room, Eddie pauses by the door for one last, lingering look. Richie doesn’t have his glasses on, and he looks messy, but it just makes him softer around the edges, and leaves his facial structure more visible. 

It’s in that moment that Eddie realizes that Richie is the first guy to really spend the night in the house. Eddie’s been to other people’s places, not often, but it has happened. Still, he’s never invited anyone back to his. It was one of his unspoken, self-imposed rules that still lingered from sharing the house with his mother. One he had never broken, until tonight.

This obviously isn’t scandalous, Richie just practically laid down and fell asleep because of how drunk he was, but the facts of the situation stand. Richie is the first guy Eddie’s ever had sleep over - and there he is, sleeping in the bed, his hair dark where it’s spread out against the pillow. Eddie feels surprisingly comfortable with him here - he doesn’t feel at all like he had feared he would - there’s nothing haunting or uncomfortable about having a man he’s attracted to sleeping over.

In that moment, he really feels like if Richie were interested, the two of them could chase all the bad memories out of this terrible house together.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, and trying to stop himself from staring at Richie while he sleeps, Eddie backs away from the door and goes up to his own room. He changes into his pajamas, slowly and methodically, still trying to calm down from the sheer adrenaline rush of everything that Richie put him through tonight.

He thinks about it, though, as he lays down in his bed, that he actually has a guy spending the night downstairs, and he gets a little thrill out of it all over again. He’s finally moving past all his arbitrary limitations - finally, after all these years.

It would be nicer if he and Richie could share the bed, but Richie’s drunk, and Eddie’s fully prepared to cut off that line of thought entirely, because he still has no real proof that Richie’s really interested. Instead, he tries to force himself to fall asleep so his subconscious can do the lingering. He and Richie can talk in the morning, and things will get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, happy weekend everybody! the response on this fic has been so amazing and you guys are so sweet <3 i've officially finished writing most of part 1, so now it'll be easier for me to keep a steady posting schedule as i just go back and clean up chapters with the help of my beta and best friend, without whom none of this could be possible - he doesn't have an ao3 really and he doesn't normally read my fics here i just wanted to say that kljasdf anyways remember to check out the fic playlist if you want, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/burntheghosts/playlist/5UR6DJCrNN83CrfsyygZmM?si=soCuD2e3RFuFUcofRdas8g)! and please let me know what you think - thanks for sticking with me as i try to let our favorite gay dumbasses be happy.


	5. can never bend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up everyone, the angst is here! sorry in advance!

Eddie set an alarm for himself carefully the previous night, so that he’d be sure to beat Richie out of bed in the morning and catch him just in case he forgot where he was. It’s not exactly a long and peaceful night’s sleep, but when he does wake up in the morning, he knows he’s felt worse. He debates on whether or not he should change into normal clothes, but for the moment he decides to stay in his pajamas - it’s not like Richie’s never seen him in sleep clothes before.

When he goes downstairs, the door to Richie’s room - the guest room, is still closed. As quietly as possible, Eddie starts up the coffee machine, and gets everything out to make some breakfast. It’s nothing much, just eggs and toast, but he figures it’s simple enough that it won’t upset Richie’s stomach even after how much he had to drink.

It takes a while before Eddie hears any noises coming from the guest room, but when he does, he still waits for a few minutes before going over to knock.

“Hey, Rich? You good?”

“...You mean aside from the part where I feel like an asshole?”

Eddie nudges the door open and finds Richie sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s changed into the pajamas at some point, he has his glasses on, and his hair is an absolute disaster. It’s some of the worst bed head Eddie’s ever seen. It’s impossible to stop himself from smiling just a little. “You’re not an asshole, Richie. It’s fine. How much do you remember?”

Richie shrugs and rubs his hands over his face. “I didn’t exactly black out. From what I remembered and just… context I figured out I was at your place. I don’t remember exactly why we’re here and I’m not at the hotel, but I was drunk enough and fucking stupid enough that I appreciate that you didn’t just leave me there alone.”

“I wouldn’t have just left you there by yourself either way, you’re right, but your hotel was surrounded by paparazzi last night, too. If I’d had to basically carry you in and someone caught wind that you just auditioned for SNL, I figured it could get back to them or something, I don’t know. I just didn’t want to risk you getting a bad reputation over something stupid.”

Richie blinks at him, looking a little stunned. “Thanks, Eds.”

If Richie was going to say anything more, he gets interrupted by his own phone buzzing on the bedside table. He jumps a little as he looks at it, and Eddie does, too.

Eddie raises his eyebrows at Richie, as if to ask,  _ Anything _ ?

“Nah, it’s not them,” Richie answers, shaking his head. “It’s my fucking agent, I just. Every time that thing moves today I’m gonna react like that, I hate it.”

After a long moment of consideration, Eddie walks over and picks up Richie’s phone. “I have an idea.”

Richie doesn’t try to stop him, just waits, expectant.

“What if we both just turn off our phones, put them somewhere we won’t look at them, and we take the day off. I’ll let someone else handle any driving business that comes up, and we just hide out here and watch movies and ignore everything else. That way you won’t keep thinking it’s SNL calling you back, and you’ll get a decent distraction.”

The only way Eddie knows how to describe the expression on Richie’s face is that he looks unbelievably  _ grateful _ . His shoulders relax, and he nods, letting out a sigh. “That sounds great, actually, Eddie Spaghetti. Just get that thing as far away from me as fucking possible.”

Eddie smiles, and nods. He takes out his own phone, texts Marty, the driver he really considers his second in command, and walks out of the room with both phones. “There’s breakfast in the kitchen when you want it,” he calls to Richie over his shoulder.

It’s easy for Eddie to find somewhere to stick their phones, just tucking them inside a random kitchen drawer, knowing Richie won’t really be looking for them anyways. He goes over and pours them both mugs of coffee, setting them out on the kitchen counter.

When Richie steps out of his room, still in pajamas, Eddie smiles at him and hands him the mug. They both lean against the counter and drink their coffee in relative silence.

“So this is all your place? Does the driving business pay that well?” Richie asks.

The question is a little embarrassing, but Eddie just shrugs a little. “It’s my place, but it’s all a little complicated. I used to live here with my mother, until she died.”

“This the same mother you said was a nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

Richie nods, but he doesn’t poke at the issue or push any further. The thing is, unlike anyone else Eddie’s known for years and years, Eddie wants to tell Richie about his mother. He wants to tell Richie everything he remembers, and he wants Richie to stick around anyways. For some reason, it feels like he might.

“She was… When I say she was a nightmare, it’s a little complicated. I told you my dad died, but he died because he got sick. I don’t remember a good chunk of growing up, but I do remember enough that having talked to my therapist… My mom got obsessed with that idea of sickness, and basically she had a variation on Munchausen by proxy. It wasn’t like a kid from The Sixth Sense situation, she wasn’t slowly poisoning me, just. She tried to take me to the doctor and convince them I had something wrong with me. I think at some point she put me on medications I didn’t need. She made me obsessive about it, but mostly it just gave me horrible anxiety. I was terrified of everything, and she made it worse, and I still felt awful about ever trying to leave her, so I bought this house and let her move in with me until she passed away. In some sense, right, she always wanted to take care of me, and she just did it wrong. In another way, I think I was just terrified of being away from her because she made me terrified.” Eddie finally pauses long enough to look over at Richie, who’s just standing there, watching him carefully. “I know that’s… a lot. I don’t know why I’m bringing it up, I just-”

“No, hey, Eds, it’s okay. I’m sure it must be tough, living here, and that’s - I mean, I thought my mom being an alcoholic was bad, but that sounds like you win, pal.” Richie gives Eddie a kind of sarcastic half-smile and reaches over to clink their coffee mugs together. “To the fucked up childhood club, right?”

Eddie laughs, relieved that Richie is still cracking jokes. “Two certified members.”

When the moment passes, Eddie heats up breakfast and they eat it together still standing in the kitchen.

“Did you say something about watching movies all day, Eds?”

Looking over, Eddie shrugs. “That was the idea, yeah. Whatever you wanna watch, movies or television, I’ve got Netflix and a gigantic collection of DVDs, you can take your pick. Actually if you want, you can go ahead and take a look while I clean up in here, it’s all just in the entertainment center.”

Richie smiles at him and nods, and Eddie takes the mugs and plates and rinses them off before he places them carefully in the dishwasher. When he’s done, he walks over to join Richie in the living room, and he pauses for a moment.

It’s a painfully domestic sight - Richie, sitting on his couch, still in his pajamas, paging through Netflix. His hair has been tamed a little, but it’s still messy, and he’s still wearing his glasses, and there’s a hint of stubble on his face, which Eddie only notices now that he’s letting himself stare. This is precisely the kind of situation that Eddie never thought he would get to have - and in this case, something about it being Richie specifically feels. Oddly familiar. Right.

It’s in that moment that Eddie realizes he’s absolutely going to offer his place to Richie if he lands the job at SNL.

They’re still trying to avoid that entire situation right now, though, so Eddie just shakes himself and goes to sit down on the couch, leaving a comfortable distance between himself and Richie.

“So what are we watching?”

Richie turns to him and smiles. “I’ve selected a curated collection of 80s greatest hits for basically the ideal movie marathon. You in, Eds?”

Eddie laughs a little, and nods, turning to the screen.

There’s an awkward pause, though, for just a moment. Eddie glances away from the screen, and back towards Richie, and Richie’s just sort of looking at him. It seems like he wants to say something, and Eddie wants to let him talk, so he turns back and gives Richie his full attention.

“What is it?”

Richie sighs. “Thank you, Eds, again. For. All of this. I mean, you know, for not letting me choke on my own vomit,” Eddie chuckles, and Richie seems to relax. Then, he continues, “But also. Letting me stay here. Making sure I didn’t end up making an asshole of myself in some fucking tabloid, just. You didn’t have to do all this. Most people wouldn’t have. I appreciate it.”

“I mean, it’s hardly part of the job description, but. We’re friends at this point, right? So. Of course.”

Richie grins at him. “Yeah, Eddie Spaghetti. My first real friend in New York, you’re a hero.” 

With everything else out of the way, Richie hits play on the first movie. They start with  _ The Breakfast Club _ , because of course they do. Richie murmurs all of Bender’s stupid jokes under his breath, and Eddie scoots closer just to shove him. Richie laughs even as he falls back against the arm at the other end of the couch.

_ Pretty in Pink _ is up next, and Eddie makes popcorn before it starts. Richie throws some at the screen every time Andrew McCarthy is there, and the two of them miss most of the movie while Richie listens to Eddie complain about how he doesn’t understand how anyone wouldn’t pick Ducky.

Neither of them can shut up during movies, it turns out. It makes sense for Richie, but something about him brings it out in Eddie. Still, it’s so much more fun to spend the entire time joking around with Richie and yelling at the characters than it is to just sit and watch everything.

Richie pulls up  _ Ghostbusters  _ after they’ve cycled through their Brat Pack selections, and Eddie smiles. “I love this movie.”

“Eddie Spaghetti, this is my favorite movie of all time, no question.”

The eerie music starts and Eddie settles into his seat, planning to actually pay attention to this one. Something, though - something about the situation seems oddly familiar. A sense of deja vu comes over him, and Eddie turns to Richie and then back to the screen, where the camera is moving through the New York Public Library.

“I think I saw this in theaters. With friends. I think I just remembered that."

Richie blinks, and turns to face him. Then he cracks a smile. “Well shit, Eds. Don’t remember too much of your childhood or we won’t have anything in common.”

Eddie snorts and throws popcorn at Richie. Richie tries to catch it in his mouth and fails miserably, and they both get drawn back into the movie when the librarian screams.

After that, they watch John Cusack in  _ Better Off Dead _ (a movie which had an obvious impact on Richie’s sense of humor), and then switch to  _ Top Gun _ to wrap up the night, just because Eddie has it on DVD. If he only has it on DVD because he had a crush on Val Kilmer when he was younger - well that’s for him to know and no one else to find out.

By the time they’ve finished their last movie, it’s dark outside, and when Eddie stands up to stretch, his joints click. 

He turns back around to face Richie. “Do you want your phone back now or tomorrow morning? Up to you.”

Richie tenses up, but he stands and steps closer. “They told me they were gonna call me today with the news, so. I should probably go ahead and check.”

Eddie nods, and they walk together into the kitchen. He opens the drawer, pulls out Richie’s phone, and hands it over to him. He watches as Richie turns it on.

There’s a slow loading process - but then the voicemail notification lights up.

“I’m… Let me just…” Richie taps at his screen and then brings the phone to his ear.

Eddie can’t really hear anything except a distant, tinny voice.

Slowly, Richie’s expression transforms into one of utter shock.

“Rich?”

Richie puts the phone down on the table again, and just stares at it.

“Richie?”

This time Eddie’s voice seems to startle him out of whatever thought process he’s having and he looks up, making eye contact. “I got it. I got the job. They want me in for a rehearsal tomorrow. That was Lorne. Michaels. He said that was the best audition he’s seen in years.”

“So that’s… good, right?”

Richie nods, but he still seems oddly subdued. It’s strange to see and know - that Richie gets boisterous over nothing in particular, that he celebrates his first taping in New York for no particular reason, but in the face of getting the thing he’s wanted all his life, he’s oddly quiet.

“Do you want me to take you back to the hotel, so you can get ready for tomorrow?”

Almost absently, Richie nods. “Yeah, no, yeah. That’s probably a good idea. Thanks… thanks, Eds.”

Quickly, Richie comes over, pulls Eddie into a tight hug, and then goes back into the guest room, presumably to pack up his things. Still unsure of how to handle the situation, Eddie goes upstairs to get dressed.

When he comes back down, Richie is packed and waiting, wearing his clothes from the previous day. They’re not as rumpled as they could be.

Once they’re in the car, they both get situated and Eddie starts down the road, and out of nowhere, Richie starts laughing.

Eddie glances over, eyebrows raised, and is glad to see that Richie’s finally smiling, his head tilted back as he looks out the windshield.

“Holy shit, Eds. I got the part. Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it, I told you that you would.”

“Alright, alright you smartass. Just put on some Queen or something and let’s do this right.”

With a grin, Eddie immediately queues up  _ Don’t Stop Me Now _ , and in no time they’re both screaming every word at the top of their lungs, and Eddie’s laughing intermittently, unable to keep a straight face.

Richie’s staying in New York - and with any luck, maybe he’ll be staying with Eddie, if Eddie can actually manage to ask him.

It’s all Eddie thinks about that night as he falls asleep after he drops Richie off, and the next morning as he drives back to the hotel.

He picks up breakfast, and hands it to Richie when he gets to the car - and Richie’s fidgety, too, though most likely just because this is his first rehearsal for SNL. Eddie tries to tame his own nerves so he’s not making Richie’s any worse.

“So I’m dropping you off at the studio - and I’m picking you back up tonight at 6?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they told me.” Richie picks at his breakfast and scoffs quietly. “It feels like my first fucking day of school, except worse because I’m almost 40 and I was never supposed to have to do this again.”

Eddie laughs, and Richie looks over at him and smiles.

“I think you’re gonna be fine, Rich. Sorry I didn’t know, I would have packed a lunch.”

They keep up their stupid bit all the way to the studio, and Richie’s lost all the stiffness in his shoulders by the time they arrive.

“Alright. See you at six, Spaghetti,” Richie says as he gets out of the car.

Eddie rolls his eyes and resists the urge to flip Richie off as he pulls away.

Admittedly, this entire situation makes him nervous all over again - he feels like if rehearsal goes poorly that he might end up with a drunk, defeated Richie on his hands again. Eddie blows time and distracts himself by going to the Natural History museum, watching little kids marvel at the taxidermy displays and dare each other to go in the corner with the infamous Squid and the Whale.

He’s early to pick up Richie that night, but he still doesn’t have to wait long. Richie walks out of the studio just a couple of minutes after six and smiles to see Eddie’s car waiting for him.

“Eds! Hate you missed the first day of school, it was a blast.”

Eddie shakes his head, but he can’t fight off a smile. “Alright, alright. Seriously, was it good?”

Richie’s smile shifts, becomes something more subdued, but also more genuine. “Yeah, actually. It was great. Everyone seems cool, the writers are excited to work with me, the whole cast did some improv stuff so we could all get used to each other. It seems like a good group. I’m lucky to be here.” Richie’s quiet for a second, and the moment passes. “Now I just actually have to find a place to live. I guess my agent’s gonna set me up some apartment viewings or something next week. I could probably ask if anyone else in the cast knows somewhere, but I think I’d rather not call in any favors just yet.”

Now’s the chance, then. The only reason Eddie manages to get it out when he says it is that really, he’s been working himself up to it since the day he met Richie. “You know you’ve seen my house, you know how much room I have - you could always just move in with me.” 

Richie laughs, and Eddie bites his lip for a moment. 

“Rich, seriously. At least for a little while until you could find your own place.”

A sort of shadow passees over Richie’s face - almost like a grimace. “You can’t actually be serious, though, that’s. I mean that’s a lot.”

Eddie winces a little and shrugs, keeping his eyes strictly on the road. “Maybe? I just feel like it makes sense, though. I have a lot of extra space, you need somewhere to stay so you can stop paying for a hotel room. With the exception of meals it’s not even really like we’d have to see each other, I’m usually upstairs in my office or bedroom, you could have the same room you stayed in. When I’m driving I basically stay busy, so it’s not like it’s. A commitment or anything I just think it’s a logical offer.”

Richie huffs out something like a laugh, but there’s something off about it. “Right. Well, the answer’s still no. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Fighting past the nausea that’s starting to creep up on him, Eddie tries to keep a casual tone. “Why not? Come on, it’s just temporary-”

“Look, that’s a nice offer, Eds, but then I’m just moving all my stuff in to move it out, getting all my shit in your way and all over your house - you’ve seen my hotel room and I’ve seen your house, there’s no fucking way my mess wouldn’t drive you up the wall. Plus it’s only been a week! You barely know me and it’s a fucking awful idea if you really stop and think about it.” Richie pauses. “I just can’t.”

The rejection stings. On a basic level, Richie’s right - it’s not like Eddie hasn’t had all those same thoughts himself. They probably wouldn’t even get along in small quarters. But the other problem is that Richie isn’t gonna need a driver to live in New York, and even if he did, there are other companies more equipped to handle long term contracts. If Richie doesn’t move in, Eddie has a real fear that he’ll never see him again.

“What does that even mean you can’t? You could at least think about it,” Eddie replies quietly, after a few beats of silence. They’re getting closer and closer to the hotel, and Eddie just wants Richie to dwell on it, at least a little.

“Think about what? I don’t need a roommate, I need to find my own place, and even if I did you’re just-” Richie stumbles, and Eddie hears exactly what he doesn’t say.  _ You’re just my driver _ . “It’s just crazy, we barely know each other.”

All of the anger and frustration that Eddie’s feeling, the impression that Richie just wasn’t really listening to him, all of that turns to ice. “I guess you’re right. I’m just your driver. I hope you have a good time apartment hunting.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Eddie shrugs. “Does it matter? It’s true. Everything you said is true. It’s only been a week, we barely know each other, we probably wouldn’t be compatible at all as roommates, you’re right. It was crazy. I don’t know what I was thinking. Technically speaking you’re employing me, it would be completely inappropriate, obviously.”

It’s like there’s a hole in Eddie’s chest that appeared as soon as Richie turned him down, and now it’s starting to grow. He knows that all of this sadness and frustration could swallow him, and that it will, but he needs to get Richie out of the fucking car first, because Eddie’s not letting him see that. He finally sees the turn for the hotel, and he takes it, stopping at the front door.

“Eds…” Richie says, softly. It sounds just like it always does, which is just the worst part. He says it like he means it, like it’s a pet name more than a nickname, like the word has a weight. Eddie doesn’t want it anymore.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I… Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Richie gets out of the car, still looking like he’s trying to think of something to say.

Eddie ignores him, and drives away as soon as the door closes, trying as hard as he can not to look at Richie at all.

He makes it all the way back to his house before he cries, which he considers a win. He can’t remember the last time he cried over a guy, which of course he can’t because he’s almost 40 fucking years old and it’s embarrassing that he’s crying over a guy at all.

For some reason, Richie just seemed different. It always felt different. But it wasn’t. Richie’s flirtatious and confident and he put Eddie at ease, and Eddie spent a week oversharing and making an idiot out of himself. There wasn’t anything there besides a basic camaraderie and Richie’s loneliness because he didn’t have anyone else in the city. Now he has his SNL castmates, he has plans, he doesn’t need to try and make plans with his fucking driver, of all people.

Eddie puts on some music and sits in the living room, drinking an entire bottle of wine and feeling sorry for himself.

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he absolutely cannot face Richie the next day. Richie’s going to apologize, but he’s still not going to move in, and Eddie’s going to have to sit there, driving, knowing that he made their entire time together into more than it was. Richie probably gives nicknames to everyone he knows. He’s naturally touchy, probably, and Eddie just hasn’t touched anyone in so long that he gave it all a significance it didn’t have.

The lost potential hurts, but it’s possible that doesn’t even hurt as much as the embarrassment.

Knowing that for the first time in a long time, he’s taking the coward’s way out, Eddie texts Marty.

**You’re finished with Downey Jr. right? If I needed you to take over for me tomorrow?**

Yeah he flew out yesterday. You feeling okay?

**Not exactly. Just a little under the weather. All the information should be in the system, but we’re still driving Richie Tozier to and from SNL rehearsals, he has an early call in the morning and he’ll be there most of the day.**

I’ll take care of it, boss.

**Thanks Marty.**

He knows that he has to text Richie. He also knows that if he texts Richie and Richie responds, he’s going to want to hide his phone under his bed and never look at it again.

He’s still having the fight with himself when he falls asleep on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully the first half of the chapter makes up for the end?? uhhh klajsdf sorry. anyways don't worry remember, this is happy ending town population our two favorite idiots so it'll get better soon, i promise. i should be posting chapter 6 on wednesday!
> 
> in other news, i posted a chapter 2 movie fix it fic the other day if any of you are interested! it's unrelated to this verse but it was extremely cathartic to write.


	6. feel me near

Eddie wakes up to a series of text messages.

_ eds where the fuck are you _

_ this guy says you’re sick i guess i’m gonna believe him and hope i’m not being kidnapped _

_ seriously eddie where the fuck are you _

_ i guess if you were dead you couldn’t have sent another driver _

_ is this about yesterday? _

He keeps asking about you. Also he thought I was kidnapping him at first.

You sure you can’t come back and pick this guy up tonight?

He looks at Richie’s messages. He doesn’t text him back.

Instead, he texts Marty.

**No I’m still feeling pretty gross. I’ll take back over tomorrow. Sorry, I know he’s sort of a handful, that thing where he refuses to sit in the back and all that. Should have warned you.**

What are you talking about? He talks a lot but he’s pretty normal. I just meant he won’t shut up about you specifically.

Do you guys know each other?

Eddie doesn’t know how to respond to that at all. In the end, he just replies:  **Sort of** , and leaves it at that.

He sort of knows Richie. He thought he knew Richie. Then again - he’s sitting in the back of Marty’s car. Does he call Marty weird nicknames?

Eddie has a terrible feeling that he fucked up somewhere.

The day drags forward. Even with Eddie having slept in, he has nothing to do to pass the time except listen to music or try to watch something. Now even his house feels empty without Richie in it, and he hates it. He misses driving him already, misses his stupid jokes and his nicknames and his terrible impressions. It almost physically hurts him - and it’s so fucking dumb, because Richie’s right, and they barely know each other, but not having him around aches like a kind of phantom limb.

Still fighting with himself, Eddie takes a shower. He fixes his hair, he puts on a nice outfit.

There’s still plenty of time for him to get into the city in time to pick Richie up from rehearsal.

He texts Marty.

**Actually I’m feeling a little better after all. You can take the night off, I’ll go pick up Tozier.**

You sure?

**Yeah, I’m sure.**

Eddie still isn’t exactly sure, but he’s made the decision in his head now, and he’s sticking to it. No more being a coward or a fucking sad sack. He has to go talk to Richie.

He pulls up and waits in the same place where he picked up Richie last time - the same place where their entire stupid conversation about Richie moving in started.

This wait feels longer than last time. Maybe it’s because it literally is, which Eddie really isn’t sure about one way or the other, because he can’t remember if he was earlier than this or not, or maybe it’s just because it feels like every second takes a full minute when he’s so nervous about seeing Richie after their argument yesterday.

When Richie finally does come out of the building, Eddie watches him walk up, too nervous to really say anything.

And then Richie gets in the back seat.

It’s stupid. Oh, God, it is the stupidest thing that has ever happened to him in his entire ridiculous life and that is really, really saying something, but Eddie very abruptly feels like he’s going to cry again. Still, he glances at Richie, who’s still looking down at his phone in the back seat, and he starts driving, because now he’s really sort of terrified of what might come out if he opens his mouth.

The longer Richie ignores him, though, the more Eddie goes from upset and apologetic to mostly just kind of pissed off. So he blew Richie off for 12 hours tops, does that really mean he gets this level of cold shoulder?

Fuck that.

“We’re doing this then, huh?”

Richie jumps like someone electrocuted him, and finally looks up from his phone and into the front seat. “Eds? What the fuck? Was that you the whole time?”

And that. Well. Eddie has to very abruptly find somewhere to park the car, because suddenly, he’s laughing so hard that he’d probably crash if he tried to keep going.

Richie gets out as soon as the car stops and slides into the front seat like always, and that just sets Eddie off again, laughing a little at Richie but mostly at himself for being maybe the most ridiculous person on the planet.

“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t trying to trick you, I just-” Eddie can barely get the words out in between rounds of giggles, and Richie’s just grinning at him, even though he’s sort of blurry because Eddie’s laughing so hard he’s teared up a little.

Finally, Eddie manages to sit up and wipe at his eyes under his glasses before he turns to Richie fully.

“So, uh. Hi. Sorry. I was hungover this morning and I felt like shit, I got Marty to pick you up. I should have texted you.”

“I genuinely thought I was being kidnapped. I could have been knocked out and had my kidneys stolen at any moment, and you wouldn’t have even been there to protect me. What kind of driver would that make you?”

Eddie laughs again, this time so hard he snorts, and Richie just watches him.

“You’re an idiot,” Eddie tells him.

Richie smiles at him, big and bright, but then it wavers. “Actually… Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Rich, look, if it’s about yesterday-”

“No, it’s- Well, yeah, it is, but let me finish. I was being an idiot, and I really wasn’t being fair to you. You were making a really nice gesture, and I didn’t really know how to react to that, and all of the shit I just kind of babbled at you was so stupid, of course we’re friends, so of course we know each other, you’ve been nicer to me in the past week than some of the people I’ve known for the last ten years. Mostly I just kind of… freaked the fuck out. I’ve been known to do that. And I do have a couple of reservations about moving in but that’s on me and not on you and I shouldn’t have dumped it on you like that.”

Eddie blinks. The answer isn’t anything like what he was expecting. It makes him want to reach over and touch, so for once, he does, placing his hand on Richie’s shoulder, sliding it down to his arm in a comforting sort of motion. “It’s up to you. I wasn’t trying to make you move in or anything if you want your own place, I just,” The words get stuck in his throat. He pulls his hand off of Richie’s shoulder, and fights past the panic. “I’m going to say something sort of pathetic and I’m just going to hope that you get it at least a little bit, but. I meant everything I said on karaoke night. I can’t remember the last time I had as much fun as I’ve had since I met you, and there’s some part of my brain, of something, that keeps telling me that when I’m not your driver anymore, I’m not going to see you. It’s just this feeling and it’s awful and I can’t explain it, because I know I have your number and I know you say that we’re friends and I know I’m being clingy and desperate and awful and that’s not a good look on anyone, but I just feel like if you get your own place and you take the subway to work and we aren’t in the same place I won’t see you again somehow. I just don’t want to-” _ Lose you. Not again. _ Eddie closes his eyes like he can pretend in the dark that he hasn’t just made himself unbearably vulnerable.

“Eddie.” There’s a hand on his face, and that makes him open his eyes. Richie looks serious, focused completely on him. “I sort of… I sort of thought I was crazy. I mean I am crazy, I’ve got paperwork to show for it, but I’ve never… This is so fucking weird.”

Eddie laughs a little, sounding hysterical. “Yeah, tell me about it, Trashmouth.” And boy Eddie does not know at all where that one came from, and it’s  _ terrifying _ , everything about this feeling is terrifying, it’s like that box he tries to keep everything in, in the back of his mind, is rattling dangerously.

Only then Richie leans forward and kisses him.

He pulls back after just a moment to say, “Okay maybe this wasn’t the best moment, but-” and then Eddie cuts him off with another kiss.

They’re both leaning awkwardly over the gear shift and the armrests, their mouths meeting and their hands on faces and necks and shoulders while their bodies stay far apart. It would be almost be distracting, except Eddie’s got the rasp of Richie’s stubble against his chin and his fingers, Richie’s tongue brushing against his lips, and Richie’s lips against his, softer than he really expected.

When they pull apart, without thinking, Eddie immediately says, “You should really move in with me.”

Richie laughs, sounding overwhelmed himself, and he nods where their foreheads are still pressed together. “Yeah, okay Eds. Whatever you want.”

Eddie snorts. “Okay, I’d watch out for that.”

Richie laughs, and he reaches over and grabs Eddie’s hand, taking it in both of his. “I’m stealing your hand. Drive one-handed. Let’s go back to the hotel and get all my shit so I can move. I’m a fucking moron, take me home.” He kisses Eddie’s hand, one to each knuckle and then a deliberately sloppy one to the back of his hand that makes Eddie pull away just to smack Richie on the shoulder.

“Asshole. I’m not driving in Manhattan with one hand. I’m not getting us killed before we even get back to my place.”

The entire drive, they keep looking at each other, glancing toward and away. Neither of them can stop smiling.

They go up to Richie’s room together, and Eddie watches him pack.

He sits on the bed, watching Richie pull everything out of his closet and organize all his toiletries in the bathroom.

Finally feeling like he can, Eddie says, “Every time I’m in here I think about that first night we did karaoke.”

Richie sticks his head around the doorway and grins. “Yeah?”

“You did that Eddie Money song, and I laughed, but uh,” Eddie cuts himself off and glances down at the bedspread, down at his own hands. “I kind of also just wanted to jump you, like before we ever left the bar.”

When Eddie finally looks back up, Richie is smiling as he walks out of the bathroom, towards the bed. “Oh yeah? That do it for you?”

Eddie bites his lip and shrugs. “I guess it did.” Richie’s looking at him the same way he did that night, his eyes dark and completely focused on Eddie. It’s a good feeling. Eddie leans into it, looking up at Richie and licking his lips. “How about the George Michael? Did that work on you?”

Richie puts a heart over his chest and pretends to fall onto the bed next to Eddie. “Hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to like, sexually harrass my driver, though, so I tried to be professional or whatever but I was obviously fucking terrible at it. I kept thinking you were gonna tell me to fuck off at some point - but now instead you asked me to move in with you. Life’s full of surprises.”

Richie sits up, and Eddie pulls him close again with a hand on his neck. “Guess it is,” he mutters into a kiss.

It’s a hell of a lot better without a fucking gear shift in the way, and Eddie can finally, finally push his fingers through Richie’s curls, messing them up a little. They part for a moment, both of them adjusting, and then Richie presses close again, pulling Eddie close with an arm around his waist and a hand at the back of his neck. Richie licks into his mouth and Eddie shivers with it, trying to get closer, wanting to keep going and knowing that they need to stop.

Eventually he manages to pull himself away with a final kiss against Richie’s jaw. “We should probably get your stuff and go back to mine, yeah?”

Richie blinks at him and grins. “Right, yeah.”

Together, they get all of Richie’s things packed and back downstairs. He checks out at the front desk with his hand firmly in Eddie’s, and then they go back to the car.

Eddie puts on his playlist, but not so loudly that they can’t talk over it.

“I do wonder if us setting any kind of boundary would make you feel more comfortable moving in even when we’re....”

“Dating?”

Eddie smiles, relieved Richie was the one to say it. “Well. Yes. Because even I realize. Well I made the offer as a platonic one but obviously it wasn’t strictly platonic, but I really didn’t actually think this would happen when I made the offer, and now that it is happening, I wonder if maybe we should still keep separate bedrooms? At least at first? Does that seem sensible?”

Richie smiles and shrugs. “Sure. That does seem sensible. I’m all in now, though, Eddie Spaghetti. I mean… Yeah, okay, this whole situation is weird but if we both know it’s weird… Fuck it, right? I feel pretty good about it.”

“I do, too.”

They smile at each other, and they let the music fill in the silence until they pull up to the house.

They put Richie’s things in the guest room, and Eddie gives him a full tour of the house that ends with them making out on the couch while they listen to Led Zeppelin records.

The thing is that it started with a joke - with Richie looking at his vinyl collection while he leaned over Eddie, pressed against his back, chin hooked over Eddie’s shoulder, and said, “You know, I always wanted to make out to Led Zeppelin when I was a teenager.”

Eddie had snorted and turned to kiss him, and said, “Of course you did.”

Only then he puts on a record, and he watches Richie go over to sit on the couch, and Richie gives him one of those stupid looks, complete with a suggestive eyebrow waggle, and Eddie knows the moment has come. He goes over to Richie and sits down right in his lap, and Richie looks up at him with something almost like awe before Eddie leans down to kiss him.

Eddie’s still nervous - he still doesn’t want to move too fast considering the fact that Richie’s moving in with him and they just fought about it yesterday, so he keeps the kisses long and slow, and he tries not to let the extended make out session turn into grinding.

Fortunately, it seems neither of them slept well the previous night, and before the vinyl even needs to be flipped, they’re both yawning in between kisses, and they both end up laughing about it.

“I guess this is it, I guess we’re old men now,” Richie says, rubbing at his face once Eddie has pulled away.

“Mm, probably.” Still, Eddie stays on Richie’s lap for just a few more moments, kissing at Richie’s neck, then his jaw, then his temple. “I’m gonna go get changed and probably head to bed - you need anything?”

“Other than you? No.”

Eddie scoffs and bats at Richie’s arm even as he finally stands up and stretches.

When they’re both standing, they share a few more lingering kisses before they go off to their respective rooms, glancing back at each other the whole way.

As Eddie falls asleep, he thinks about the fact that Richie is actually here, and that he actually successfully brought a guy home and even made out with him.

Unfortunately, even the pleasant thoughts before bed don’t stop Eddie from having a nightmare when he finally falls asleep. He wakes up before dawn and stumbles his way down the stairs and into the kitchen to make himself some tea. Richie’s already there, though, opening and closing the kitchen cabinets, clearly looking for something.

“Rich?”

Richie startles, and turns to face Eddie, and Eddie can’t stop himself from smiling a little at Richie’s reaction. “Shit, Eds, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing up?”

Eddie shrugs, wrapping his arms around himself. “Nightmare. You?”

“Uh, yeah. Me too. Funny how a childhood of repressed trauma will do that to you, huh.”

“I don’t know if funny is the word I’d use,” Eddie replies softly. He walks over to put his hands on Richie’s shoulders, and when Richie leans into it, Eddie pulls him fully into a hug.

For a while, they both just stand there in the kitchen in a close embrace, their only background noise the hum of the refrigerator.

“Maybe the separate bedroom rule was a little silly,” Richie eventually murmurs.

“I mean, I still think I was making a fair point, it’s a little fast for us to be moving in together in the traditional sense, but in this case… Maybe it doesn’t have to be a hard and fast rule.”

Richie sighs and presses a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head, and then one against his temple. “Yeah, no, I’m feeling rebellious, rules were meant to be broken. Let’s go back to bed.” He leans far enough back that he can make eye contact with Eddie and waggles his eyebrows. “Your place or mine, Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie leans forward as he laughs, his forehead pressing against Richie’s. “God you’re intolerable, I don’t know why I let you move in here.”

“Word on the street is that you’re deeply and unbearably fond of me.”

Huffing out a laugh, Eddie shakes his head just a little, brushing his nose against Richie’s in the process. “I guess I must be.” He kisses Richie, just a brief press of lips on lips, and then pulls back. “Just come up to my room.”

He takes Richie’s hand, and they go upstairs to get some more sleep together. Eddie doesn’t have another nightmare that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's right, folks, we're winding down!! the next chapter is really sort of a coda and a teaser for part 2 so the kind of major arc of the fic is wrapped up here. i can't tell you how much all your comments and support have meant through this journey. this fic means a lot to me, and it's been amazing to share it with all of you. final chapter of part 1 will be posted this weekend!


	7. oh it's been so long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up for the slight lift in rating - if you're not into that, it's just a brief scene here and not explicit, but the rating will be higher on part 2 of this fic as well

Eddie and Richie fall so easily into living together that it seems ridiculous that either of them ever had doubts. Honestly, it’s so easy that Eddie still keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, keeps waiting for the horrible consequences.

It doesn’t seem like they’re actually coming.

In the mornings, he and Richie crowd around the sink and bump elbows while they brush their teeth. They eat breakfast together. Eddie drives him to work. They tease, and bicker, and kiss each other’s annoyance away, and every night they curl up on the couch or in bed and watch movies or old episodes of SNL or whatever they’re in the mood for.

Eddie’s never known anything like it. He’s never had anyone else he feels so safe around, so comfortable and so whole.

He’s also never known anyone quite so annoying, but he loves every minute of it.

With Richie in the main featured cast of SNL, his popularity skyrockets. He’s brilliant. Eddie goes to every show he can, watching with a stupid, ridiculous grin while Richie does all his dumb voices for millions of viewers.

Eddie tries to make sure that when he takes any driving jobs, they don’t keep him from taking Richie to and from work, which mostly means he doesn’t take many jobs himself. If there’s anyone particularly important in town, he drives, but most of the time he lets his other drivers handle things and just keeps track of scheduling and logistics.

Months pass by, and the new routine leaves him with a lot of extra time on his hands, so he ends up deciding to redecorate the entire house. He peels off all the old tacky wallpaper, gets rid of any furniture that was technically his mother’s, and repaints almost the entire house.

When Richie gets time off, in between seasons, he helps out.

Mostly that actually means he starts a paint fight and both of them end up covered in paint and giggling, but Eddie can’t actually be mad when Richie’s tackling him to the ground and leaving light blue handprints all over his face and his already dirty clothes.

They’re cleaning out the attic one day when Richie discovers some old photos.

“Holy shit, is this a tiny Eds I see before me?”

Eddie goes over and finds that it’s one of the pictures his mom took when he was growing up in Maine - he must have been around 12, standing by his bicycle. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Richie glances at him, and then back at the picture and grins. “God you were the cutest fucking kid, that’s ridiculous. You know you look like someone - don’t you? Fred Savage maybe?”

Groaning, Eddie grabs the picture and nudges Richie with his elbow. “Alright, that’s enough, no more baby pictures for you.”

“Eddie baby, don’t deprive me like that, you’re so cute.” Richie comes up behind him, arms around his waist, chin over his shoulder. “Just look at that face - look at those little freckles. Can you imagine if we could have kids? We’d have the cutest little dorks around.”

Trying to hide his own laughter and his blush, Eddie turns around and pokes Richie in the chest. “That’s definitely not a thing and I’ve never even seen you as a kid.”

Eddie sets the picture down on a box and Richie presses close again, kissing at Eddie’s jaw. “Well you know we could always give it a shot anyways.”

Laughing, Eddie shoves him off. “Oh my god, you are so fucking ridiculous, why are you always like this? Let’s at least get out of the attic first, it’s so fucking dusty up here, can you imagine?”

Richie’s still laughing at him as they both climb down the ladder.

He gets to see a picture of Richie that night, because Richie remembers and pulls it up on his phone. They’re lying in bed, Eddie pressed against Richie’s side, leaning close to look at his phone screen. And there he is - exactly the way Eddie would have pictured him. Big, dorky glasses on a little freckled face with that same nose, and those same big dark eyes. Eddie laughs a little and leans over to kiss Richie on the cheek.

“Guess you were a pretty cute kid, too. Those glasses, though - much worse.”

“Shut up,” Richie mutters, leaning over to kiss Eddie.

“Where’d you grow up?” Eddie interrupts to ask, pulling back just a little. “I ask, just - something about that picture looks familiar.”

“Me? Oh, uh - well I lived in Maine until-”

“Maine?” Eddie blinks, and then laughs. “Shit. That’s funny, so did I.”

Richie looks at him, frowning. “Really? No shit? That’s uh- wow that is weird. Wouldn’t that be funny, if we grew up like twenty minutes from each other and never knew.”

Eddie breaks, scoffs and shakes his head. “Probably not - but it would be funny. Very romantic comedy. Like one of those little in between bits in When Harry Met Sally.”

Richie grins, and they kiss again, distracting themselves easily.

Two years pass easily and quickly.

They’re both sitting at home one evening, after dinner, when Richie says, “We never go to that karaoke bar anymore.”

Eddie looks up from his phone and frowns a little. “Rich, we basically never go out. We’re both 40 years old and neither of us have been single in two years, we can just be obnoxious in our own home.”

Richie laughs and goes over behind Eddie’s chair, leaning down to press a kiss to his jaw. “Come on, old man. Not even for old time’s sake? Back to the place we first fell in love?”

“You’re an asshole,” Eddie says, but he can’t keep the fond little smile off his face as he turns to kiss Richie properly. They linger for a moment, and Richie is the one to pull back.

“Come on Eds, you know you want to. We could do Total Eclipse of the Heart, just like we always used to.”

The thing is, like always, Eddie knows he’s beat. He’s fucking terrible at saying no to Richie, he has been ever since Richie first threw himself into the front seat of Eddie’s car. “Fine, dipshit. Let me call an Uber and we’ll go do karaoke just so you’ll shut up about it.”

“Love you, too,” Richie says, kissing Eddie one last time before he goes to change.

Eddie does the same, going up to their room and digging out something nice, but casual. He thinks the button-down might actually be the same one he wore the first time they ever went. Richie smiles like it is.

It really isn’t a particularly special day. Eddie checked his phone calendar just in case, but it isn’t their anniversary, or the anniversary of the day they met, or anything like that. It’s just a nice gesture, probably, and Richie is prone to those kinds of spontaneous declarations.

Both of them, to be fair, are affectionate people. It’s probably a symptom of the loneliness they both clearly knew before they met, but that’s one of the nicest parts of being with someone who understands. Neither of them are reluctant with kisses or declarations of love or anything else. It’s easily the most secure relationship Eddie’s ever been in, and he feels like the luckiest man in Manhattan every day.

When they get to the bar, Richie immediately drags Eddie to the sign up table and gets them Total Eclipse of the Heart, because he really wasn’t kidding. They order their drinks and find a booth, and Richie just keeps staring at Eddie and smiling.

“What is with you tonight? Did I forget something? Can you even get a raise when you’re an SNL cast member?”

“No, I’m just happy. Is that illegal now, Mr. Fun Police?”

“No, you fucking weirdo, of course not, I’m glad you’re happy. I’m just also deeply paranoid and suspicious of your motives.”

Richie laughs, big and loud, and Eddie smiles with him.

They get called up, and Eddie tries to prepare himself for Richie’s ridiculous stage antics and for his own attempts at performing when he’s still mostly sober.

The routine is an art form at this point, since they used to do it all the time, and Eddie hasn’t forgotten.

Only halfway through the song, Eddie turns around, and Richie’s in front of him on one knee.

He stops singing, and he’s pretty sure he drops the microphone. Richie isn’t holding his anymore, just a ring box, in one of his hands.

Everyone in the bar is quiet.

The music stops.

“Hey, Eds. Marry me?”

Eddie can feel himself start to tear up. “You’re an asshole,” he says, because he’s going to cry in this room full of people, oh God.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a yes, you idiot, get up here,” he says, and he steps closer to haul Richie up by his shirt and kiss him within an inch of his life. If Richie’s going to propose in a bar full of people, then Eddie’s going to kiss him in front of all those people, too, without any regard for them. He pushes his hands into Richie’s curls and presses his tongue into Richie’s mouth and tries to pour every bit of love he feels for his ridiculous, obnoxious, gorgeous, hilarious  _ fiance _ into the kiss.

When Eddie finally does pull away, people in the bar are still whistling and clapping, and Richie gives them all a stupid little wave before they step off the stage.

“I think I’m supposed to be getting a ring now, right?” Eddie says.

Richie laughs, a little teary, too, and takes the ring out of the box to put it on Eddie’s finger. “I hope you like it.”

It’s simple - a silver band of braided metal. Eddie loves it. He turns and kisses Richie again. “Take me home, Rich.”

“Yep, okay, calling the Uber.”

Eddie would almost feel bad for the Uber driver for making out with Richie all the way back to the house, but he’s had worse things happen in the backseat of his cars, so there’s only so much sympathy he can have. None of it can override the fact that he just got engaged.

Once they’re in the house, they leave their clothes on the stairs like they’re still in their 20s, shedding them as they go, barely able to separate long enough to take anything off. When they fuck, Richie intertwines their fingers and Eddie sees the light glinting off his engagement ring every time Richie kisses his hand, which he can’t seem to stop doing.

It’s easily the best sex they’ve had in months, which is saying something, because Eddie feels like they’ve never really had bad sex.

Eddie spends the next week unable to stop looking at the ring himself, glancing at it constantly out of the corner of his eye, or noticing it while he’s driving, the way the light glints off of it where his hand is wrapped around the steering wheel.

He gets the phone call while he’s at home one day. He’s been reworking the schedules for next week for a few hours, and he’s still rubbing at the tension headache under his glasses when his phone starts to ring.

It’s a number from Maine. It’s not as if they’ve never had a client from Maine, but something about it sets Eddie off, and his heart is pounding out of his chest before he even picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Eddie Kaspbrak? This is Bill Denbrough.”

“As in - Bill Denbrough the writer? Sorry, clients don’t normally call my personal number-”

“Eddie, it’s me, it’s Bill. From Derry? Do you r-r-remember?”

Eddie abruptly closes his eyes, feeling like his headache just turned into a migraine. If other things in the past couple of years have made that box in the back of his head rattle, that’s nothing compared to this. Cracks are showing up already - just a few things come back to him, slowly.

The town he grew up in, having friends, not just Bill, but Stan and - oh God,  _ Richie _ .

_ It was the last day before Eddie moved - his things were all packed up, his mother was planning to leave early in the morning. New York wasn’t that far away, but it seemed like the other side of the world. _

_ He and Richie were sitting at the quarry. Mike and Richie would both be there to see him off in the morning, but today Richie had come by his house and they’d biked out here together. _

_ Richie stood by the edge, throwing rocks down into the water, and Eddie sat on a boulder watching him. _

_ “Hey Eddie Spaghetti, you wanna go for a last swim?” _

_ “Okay well first of all that water is disgusting, it’s so much worse now than it used to be, they probably dump all kinds of shit in there and second of all I’ll never hear the end of it if I go home tonight and my mom sees I’m all gross and shit when we’re leaving in the morning.” _

_ Richie turned back around, rolling his eyes. “What’s she even gonna do? It’s your last day! And it’s not like she won’t be all gross by the morning-” _

_ “Nope! Shut the fuck up you’re so gross, oh my god, I will go right the fuck home, I will not even miss you, you piece of-” _

_ Only then Richie had rushed over and pulled Eddie into a hug, and Richie’s arms were around his shoulders and his face was kind of pressed against Richie’s chest and it was - nice. _

_ Eddie blushed. _

_ “Hey, just- don’t forget me, yeah, Eds?” _

_ “Rich…” Eddie was a little startled, but before he could wrap his arms around Richie, Richie had pulled back, pushing up his glasses. _

_ “Sorry, stupid, that was fucking stupid-” _

_ “No, asshole, just.” Eddie stood up and hugged Richie again, refusing to let go of the moment while he had it. This time Richie hugged him, too, and they stood there, holding onto each other. “Like I could forget your fucking trashmouth anyways, don’t be dumb.” _

_ Richie laughed, but it sounded a little watery. Eddie ignored it, trying to fight off his own urge to cry, or do something even worse.  _

_ “Yeah your mom’s not gonna forget it, either,” Richie said. _

_ Eddie shoved him off. “Okay, nope! No, fuck you, god you’re so-” _

His head’s still pounding, but Eddie doesn’t care, all of a sudden. “Bill, I- I remember a little now but I’m sorry I probably need to go-”

“Eddie, w-wait. That’s not all.”

“...What is it?”

“It’s come back.”

“It,” Eddie whispers, and there it is. That awful sensation, that creeping feeling he gets in his spine, the phantom pain in his arm, the tightening in his chest, the feeling that he should have an inhaler, where’s his inhaler, oh god he did have an inhaler.

There was something else in that town with them, something about the town, a reason they all forgot, a reason he didn’t remember even when he met Richie again.

He has to see Richie.

“Will you come?” Bill asks, and Eddie is already grabbing his keys.

“I have to talk to Richie first.”

“Wait, you guys are- are you his fiancé?”

“Yes, we just got engaged like a week ago, Bill, fuck. Did you call him already?”

“No, not yet - but I have to. Everyone else f-forgot, too.”

“Can you give me half an hour to get into the city? Make sure I’m there after he talks to you? Please?”

There’s a moment of silence. “Yeah, sh-sure, Eddie. I’ll call him in half an... hour.”

Eddie hangs up, probably abruptly, and rushes to the car, and drives probably even worse than the day Richie felt like he fucked up his SNL audition and called him from the bar. He has no idea what’s going to happen when he gets there, no idea what Richie’s going to remember, no idea what else he’ll remember when he sees Richie’s face.

He just knows he has to get there, and see him as soon as possible.

They’ll figure the rest out together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end of part 1!!! before you yell at me in the comments i'm SORRY but you know i have to get people invested in part 2 somehow. thank you all again for following me on this journey, i'm promise i'm trying to make it worth it. you've all been so kind and i've had a blast finally sharing this fic. thank you especially to those of you who have commented on basically every chapter, you really keep me going.
> 
> also - yes you read that right, bill calls them! a lot changes in part 2 and you'll find out things as we go along but i'm excited to do some interesting stuff.
> 
> i'm going to have to take a week off before i start posting part 2, but go ahead and subscribe to the series not just the fic and look forward to that! i've been working really hard on trying to make sure it can live up to expectations klasdklajsdf
> 
> see you all in a week or so!
> 
> EDIT: I'M NOT GONNA KILL EDDIE IN PART 2 YOU MONSTERS oh my god lkjasfd part 2 is still a fix it and everyone lives i promise (and i've said this elsewhere anyways so yes everyone includes stan, Everybody Lives)


End file.
